by Amy Cross
“Thank you,” I reply. “For everything.”
“You're welcome,” she says with a smile. “It feels good to be working on something like this for a change. I'd almost forgotten what human contact is like.”
“What else do you do here at the base?” I ask.
“Oh...” She pauses, suddenly seeming a little uncomfortable. ”Nothing much. Just little side projects, you know?” She eases the main part of the bandage over my foot. “Your father can be something of a task-master. Ever since he took charge of the recovery program, we've been working non-stop, but it's worth every second. I think we're really starting to make some breakthroughs.”
Hearing someone at the door, I turn and see that General Patterson has entered the room.
“How's the patient?” he asks.
“I'm just getting her ready for her journey to Boston,” Doctor Kennedy replies. “I hate to think how those savages will deal with her foot. I'm going to write a proper note for them, I just hope they read it and pay attention.”
“Did you send someone out to look for Toad?” I ask.
“Actually...” Patterson pauses, and I can see that something's wrong. “I was about to deploy a group of men, but they were reassigned at the last moment. Orders from the top. I'm sorry, my hands are tied.”
“Orders from the top?” I reply. “You mean -”
“Boston is the best place for you to be,” he continues. “It's far, far safer than Mitchfield. In a few weeks' time, we're all going to ship out when our work is done, and then the place will just be left to fall down. If your friend Toad shows up while we're still here, we can take him with us, and eventually we should reach Boston. I can also make sure that a note is left for him, just in case... Stranger things have happened, right? Don't give up hope.”
“Thanks,” I reply, “but there's already been one miracle. Asking for two seems greedy. Anyway, he won't come anywhere near this base, he's suspicious of any kind of military group. In fact, he's kind of a loner.”
“We need to stick together,” Patterson replies. “Now more than ever. Loners are never going to cut it out there, if we ever -”
Before he can finish, an alarm starts ringing in another part of the building.
“What the hell are they doing now?” Doctor Kennedy asks, dropping her equipment and hurrying to the door. “Goddamn idiots...”
Taking the radio from his belt, Patterson hits a button on the side. “Patterson here. Are you -”
“There's a problem,” a voice crackles.
“Stay here,” Patterson tells me, as he and Kennedy head out into the corridor, pulling the door shut as they go. A moment later, just as I'm trying to work out what could possibly be causing them to worry so much, I hear a key being turned in the lock.
“Hey!” I shout, clambering off the table and limping across the room, only to find that the door is locked. “You can't just leave me in here! What's happening?”
I wait for a reply, but all I can hear is the sound of people running past while the alarm continues to sound in the distance. Whatever's happening out there, it sounds like some kind of emergency. Hearing someone outside, I stand back as I realize that there's a key in the lock again, and finally Patterson opens the door.
“This way,” he says, clearly worried about something. “I need to get you to a different part of the building.”
“What's happening?”
“Nothing. Just move.”
“Is it -”
“Move!”
Grabbing my arm, he starts pulling me out of the room, but in the process I bang my right foot against the door-frame and let out a cry of pain.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I'll be fine,” I reply, starting to limp alongside him, “but what's wrong? Where's my father?”
“We're just experiencing a small problem in one of the medical bays,” Patterson explains, drawing his gun as we reach the next intersection. The lights flicker above us for a moment as we head along another corridor. “There's nothing to worry about.”
“When people say there's nothing to worry about,” I reply, “it usually means -”
Hearing a scream in the distance, I stop and look back. I swear, it's the same person I heard yesterday. Whoever she is, she's clearly in agony.
“Elizabeth,” Patterson says firmly, still holding my arm, “we have to get moving!”
“Who is she?” I ask.
“That's not information that needs to be given out right now,” he continues, as raised voices are heard in the distance. “Elizabeth, please, I need you to cooperate a little here. Don't make me drag you!”
“But if -”
Before I can finish, Patterson grabs hold of me and scoops me up into his arms, before carrying me along the corridor. I want to tell him to put me down, but to be honest I'm in total shock that he'd do something like that; I feel like a badly behaved pet who has to be shifted out of the way.
“Sorry,” he mutters, checking over his shoulder as if he's worried that we're being followed, “it's just quicker like this.”
“Can you at least tell me what's happening?” I ask as we make our way around another corner. “Where's my father? Is he okay?”
“He's fine,” Patterson says, “just -”
Suddenly there's another scream from up ahead, just as a white-coated figure stumbles into view, clutching her bloodied face. As she crashes into the wall, I realize that it's Doctor Kennedy, and there's blood all over her shirt. She turns, as more blood dribbles onto the floor from a hole in her cheek.
“What happened to her?” I ask, wide-eyed with shock as Patterson stops in the middle of the corridor.
“She got me!” Kennedy shouts, trying to take a few more steps before dropping down to the floor. “Everyone keep away, I'm contaminated! Nobody touch me!”
In the distance, several shots are fire.
“We're going back this way,” Patterson says, turning and carrying me back the way we came.
I turn and look back, watching as Kennedy tries to get to her feet. A moment later, a figure stumbles into view at the far end of the corridor, and for a moment I make eye-contact with a woman whose skin appears to be partially hanging off in long, thin strips. She's completely naked, and part of her chest seems to have been eaten away, exposing the ribs beneath.
“What is that thing?” I whisper.
Turning, Patterson raises his gun.
“What is it?” I shout.
The woman pushes past Kennedy and stumbles toward us, and from the way her skin seems to have turned a kind of gray-yellow color, it's almost as if she's one of the creatures I saw in New York. One of her feet is missing, forcing her to limp on a bloodied stump, but this fact doesn't seem to bother her at all. She seems driven to keep coming, as if nothing can stop her.
“Is she -” I start to ask.
Patterson fires three times, blowing the woman's head apart and causing her to drop to her knees before finally she slumps to one side. In the distance, Doctor Kennedy is still trying to get to her feet, as several soldiers hurry around the corner with their guns raised.
“Get away from me!” Kennedy screams. “Don't touch me!”
“Where the hell were you?” Patterson shouts.
“Sir,” one of the soldiers replies, “we were -”
“I don't want to hear your excuses!” he continues. “Sarah Waterson should never have got past the first set of doors. Jesus Christ, were you asleep on the job?”
“I'm contaminated,” Kennedy says, her voice trembling with fear as she looks at her blood-soaked hands. “It's all over me...”
“This is a goddamn mess,” Patterson continues, turning and carrying me away.
“What happened back there?” I ask, trying to look over his shoulder before he takes me along another corridor. “Is she going to be okay?”
“Doctor Kennedy? She'll be absolutely fine. Don't worry about a thing, Elizabeth, you'll be out of here soon enough.”
“That was one of the creatures, wasn't it?” I continue. “I thought they were all gone! What the hell are you doing with one in the building? Did it break in?”
“We'll put you in here for now,” he replies, carrying me into the room where I first woke up and settling me down onto the bed. “Do I have to lock the door, or can I trust you to just stay put?”
“But if -”
“Doctor Waterson was the only creature at the facility,” he continues, “or at least... She was, until...” His voice trails off for a moment. “I'll get your father to come and speak to you soon, okay? I'm sorry, Elizabeth, but I don't have time to explain everything, not right now. I need to go and clean up whatever mess they've created. Please, just stay put and your father will either come himself, or he'll send someone to fetch you.”
“I don't want to go to Boston,” I reply, grabbing his arm as he tries to leave. “I want to stay here until you've found Toad.”
“Don't be crazy,” he replies, pushing my hand away. “Right now, this is the last place on the planet anyone would want to be. This is hell.”
Thomas
“Let's see you try the same thing again,” I mutter as I place several pieces of fabric over the air-vent above the bunker, before weighing them down with rocks.
After checking that the vent is completely covered, I scramble across the boulders until I reach one that allows me to hide without being seen too easily. Crouching down, I take the screwdrivers from my pocket and start going through them, determined to make sure that I can defend myself if necessary.
Once I've selected the two screwdrivers that seem sharpest, I hitch the others to my belt and peer through a gap in the rocks, watching the pile of fabric on top of the vent. It might take a while, but I'm going to get hold of the guy when he comes out to fix the problem.
***
Several hours later, with the sun setting and darkness falling across the scene, I've begun to carve small drawings into the rocks using one of the screwdrivers. It's not exactly the most fascinating project in the world, but it's better than counting sheep or – even worse – thinking back to all the people who've died over the past few weeks.
Sometimes I think it's a miracle that I'm still alive.
Eventually, just as I'm getting to the point at which there's not enough light for me to finish my work, I hear a bumping sound nearby. Looking through the gap in the rocks, I realize I can hear a faint creaking sound, which could be the bunker's metal door being opened. I wait, with the two screwdrivers held firmly in my hands, and finally I hear someone getting closer before, finally, the silhouette of a human appears above the distant boulders, heading over to the vent. I watch as the figure crouches by the vent and glances around, as if he's checking that there's no-one around, and then he hurriedly removes the small rocks and pieces of fabric from the top of the vent.
“Don't move!” I shout, stepping out from behind the boulders and holding the screwdrivers out toward him. “I swear to God, if you try anything, I'll stab you!”
“Thomas?” a familiar voice replies.
I stare at the silhouette for a moment.
“Quinn?” I say finally, barely able to believe that it's her.
“Oh, thank God you're okay,” she says, getting to her feet and stepping toward me, which finally allows me to see her face properly. “I was starting to worry when you didn't come back, I thought maybe something terrible had happened to you at the camp.”
“I thought you were dead!”
“Why on earth did you think that?” she asks, as if it's the craziest idea in the world.
“All the blood!” I continue. “There was blood on the ground when I came back!”
“Oh, that.” She pauses. “Well, yes, I'm afraid there was a bit of a struggle when Leonard came out from the bunker, but it's okay, he's fine now. It wasn't much more than a bump on the head, although that hasn't stopped him complaining. I swear, that man has the pain threshold of a newborn child.”
“Leonard? Who the hell is Leonard?”
“The man we saw through the window.” She reaches out and pushes my hands down. “Don't point those horrible screwdrivers at me. Now come on, let me introduce you properly. We're not savages.” With that, she turns and starts making her way across the boulders. Again, she seems to be completely unaware that this situation is surreal.
“Thing are going crazy at the camp,” I reply, following carefully. “I know what Mark's up to!”
“Something horrid, no doubt?”
“He has this pit,” I continue, “filled with those creatures, and he's throwing dead bodies down there to feed them! It's like he thinks they're his pets or some kind of personal army! At one point he even referred to them as his apostles!”
“Well that's not right at all, is it?” she replies, clambering down to the hatch's doorway, from which a patch of light can be seen. “I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to work out what to do next, Thomas, but it does sound as if that frightful pit should be destroyed as quickly as possible.”
“What is this place?” I ask, jumping down and stopping at the open door. Looking inside, I realize that there's a small room with metallic walls, and a door leads off to what must be other rooms.
“It's a bunker,” Quinn replies, stopping in the middle of the first room and turning to me. “Come on, get inside. We don't want to leave the door open for too long, do we? The light from this place is likely to attract stragglers from miles around if we're not careful.” Stepping past me, she pulls me into the room before closing the door and turning a wheel that slides a large bolt across. “There,” she continues. “It'd take a tank to get through this thing. We should probably think about getting a tank, by the way. I'm sure there are plenty just sitting around these days.”
“I don't understand,” I say, stepping over to the middle of the bare room. “What's a bunker doing all the way out here? And who's the -”
“Leonard,” a dour, unimpressed male voice calls out from the next room. “My name's Leonard!”
I stare at Quinn. “Who?” I mouth silently after a moment.
“Leonard!” she says excitedly, grabbing my hand and leading me through. “Leonard Cole, I want you to meet a very good friend of mine, Thomas Edgewater. And Thomas, I want you to meet a very new friend, Mr. Leonard Cole of the... What was your organization called again, Lenny?”
“Please don't call me Lenny,” he replies, wincing as he puts a damp cloth against a cut on his left cheek. A middle-aged, unkempt-looking man with a face that looks particularly sour, he has slouching shoulders and the demeanor of someone who hasn't been impressed by anything for a very long time. He's sitting on one of two camp-beds. “And it's the Boston Metropolitan Institute for Communicable Disease Prevention and Study. Before you ask, no, there's not a handy acronym. You have to say the whole name every time.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“So far, getting smacked in the head by a rock thrown by this lunatic.”
“You startled me,” Quinn says innocently. “What else was I supposed to do?”
“Do you always throw rocks at people you don't know?” he asks.
“Sometimes. Well, only once before.”
“Hold on,” I say, interrupting them, “why are you living in some kind of nuclear fallout bunker next to Lake Erie? And why are you so close to a group of people living by the lake?”
“It's not a nuclear fallout bunker,” he replies testily, “it's a research pod set up by the Boston Metropolitan Institute for Communicable Disease Prevention and Study. It's next to Lake Erie because this is one of the locations we chose for our study into long-term post-apocalyptic survival, due to certain environmental and geographic factors. And it's close to a group of people, as Ms. Quinn has so keenly informed me, due to sheer bad luck, and also because – I guess – they also realized that this would be a good spot to pick. Just my luck, huh?” He dabs at his wound a little more, before checking the cloth for blood. Sighing, he sets it down on
the other bed. “I had no idea anyone was in the area until you two showed up a couple of days ago.”
“So what were you studying?” I ask.
“I told you,” he replies with a sigh. “The idea was to test out living conditions for people seeking to survive mass extinction events. It's a research program being run by the Boston Metropolitan Institute for Communicable Disease Prevention and Study.”
“Like the one we're dealing with now,” Quinn points out.
“Ironic timing, huh?” he continues. “The idea was that I was supposed to live in this pod for an entire year, to test out the system and see what kind of psychological effects there might be.”
“What kind of psychological effects have you noticed so far?” Quinn asks.
“The ability to hallucinate annoying idiots,” he says darkly.
“Leonard has a very cynical sense of humor,” Quinn continues, turning to me. “I think it's his way of coping with the terrible sense of isolation.”
“You have no idea how much I'd like to be isolated right now,” Leonard says. “I was quite happy being isolated. I was chosen for this project specifically because I'm good at being on my own.” Sighing, he mutters something under his breath, before getting to his feet and grabbing a cup of water. “There are twelve of us,” he continues, “dotted around the country. We went in on January the first, and we were supposed to stay in until the last day of December.” He takes a sip. “I guess circumstances overtook us.”
“You can say that again,” Quinn mutters.
“I suppose the project's over now.”
“Why?” she asks.
“Because the Boston Metropolitan -”
“You really don't have to say the whole name in full every time.”
“Because the organization,” he continues, clearly annoyed, “probably doesn't exist anymore.”
“Mark's insane,” I say, turning to Quinn. “Seriously, you should see the pit he's dug and the creatures that are down there. There's something not right with him, and I think I already know the next person who's going to end up getting thrown down there.”
