The Cannibal Virus

by Anthony DeCosmo

  "Finish sealing them up," the Asian said. "Then we'll sort this shit out."

  * * *

  One of the bulkheads threatened to close directly in front of Gant and Stacy as they raced along the main corridor with a mass of corpses — some fresher than others — in pursuit.

  "Hurry, damn it! Hurry," Gant encouraged both himself and his companion as six feet … five feet … four feet of open space remained between a closing shield and the floor.

  "Dive!"

  And she did, right alongside Gant, although she went headfirst while the major's jump resembled that of a runner in a baseball game sliding in to second base.

  Regardless of technique, they both made it. The divider shut solidly behind them, cutting off the pursuit and leaving them alone in a fifty-foot stretch of corridor.

  Well, not entirely alone.

  Ahead stood the Security Control booth. Exactly where Gant wanted to be.

  The two interlopers approached from the side, staying clear of the window looking out on the passageway. His hopes of gaining easy access faded, however, as they neared the door and he spied a security lock.

  Frustrated and unable to think of a better way, Thom raised the AKM with the intention of shooting the lock off. Stacy tugged at his shoulder and flashed the security badge she had stolen during her escape from the test chamber.

  Gant smiled, shrugged, and waved his hand at the lock, inviting her to open the door.

  She slid the stolen access card through the magnetic reader and a bolt retracted. Before the sound of that retracting bolt had faded, Major Gant pulled open the door and burst in with his gun at the ready.

  The two guards had been so intently watching the video feeds that they had not been ready to face a more direct threat. Both the European man and the Asian guard reacted to Gant's entry and his weapon by raising their hands without hesitation.

  "Away from the console," he ordered as the door shut behind him.

  Both men complied.

  "Easy, gentlemen," he said, handing the AKM to Stacy. She did her best to look menacing and she did know how to use the weapon, but her expression appeared more strained than tough.

  Gant produced the Makarov pistol and his expression was more than menacing enough to compensate for any weakness they might have seen in her eyes.

  "First things first. Where is your radio?"

  The men glanced at one another but said nothing.

  Gant received an answer to his question in the form of a radio transmission coming from a cabinet at the back of the small room.

  He stepped in that direction without taking his aim away from the targets. When he opened the cabinet he found a communication station, including a rather large phone as well as a more traditional radio, from which the transmission had come.

  "Dolphin One to Nest control, do you copy?"

  Another sound caught Gant's ear: a beep. He traced the noise to the main console, where he saw what was clearly a radar display showing a contact closing fast.

  "Dolphin One to Nest control. You are ordered to respond."

  "I am going to make a guess," Gant wagged his finger at the men. "That's Terrance Monroe on his way in, right?"

  Neither of the security guards said a word, but they did not have to.

  A big, great-white-shark smile grew on Gant's face as he waved the pistol toward the Asian guard and told him in stilted speech, "Answer it and clear them to land."

  The guard responded in rough but defiant English: "Fuck you."

  Gant raised the Makarov and fired a solitary round directly through the man's forehead. The rear half of his skull exploded in a backfire of bone, gray matter, and blood. One side wall became a piece of impressionist artwork of a most gory kind, completely covering a map of the facility in all manner of sickly colors.

  The sound of the shot filled the small room and threatened to burst an eardrum or two while the dead body went straight down and, unlike many of the security team at the complex, stayed dead.

  Stacy gasped what was nearly a scream and put a hand over her mouth, allowing the gun barrel to droop. Thom's smile did not waver as he leveled the handgun at the European guard.

  Without hesitation the second man followed the order, approaching the radio and answering the call.

  "Uh, Dolphin One this is Nest. You are, um, clear to land. Sorry for the, um, delay."

  "Roger that, Nest, stop jerking off down there and pay attention. You're going to get the bosses pissed off."

  "Ummm … yeah."

  Gant slashed a hand across his throat and the guard understood to cut off the conversation.

  "You go sit in the corner over there and shut your mouth," he told the guard, and then told Stacy, "If he moves or speaks, you put a couple of rounds in him."

  She nodded her head, but the loss of color in her cheeks suggested she was more likely to throw up than shoot someone.

  Gant approached the main console and took stock of the images coming in from the security cameras around the complex. Some of the monitors showed empty, sealed rooms. Some showed stretches of corridor flooded with fungus-infected corpses bumping into walls and closed bulkheads. Other cameras carried images of the base's technicians and soldiers, also trapped behind the containment bulkheads that had managed to stop the spread of the infected by separating everyone inside the complex into compartments.

  "Beautiful," he spoke aloud, still beaming. "You have this place sealed up tight."

  He leaned in close to the bank of monitors and eyed a pair of technicians — one of them that Englishwoman — sitting on the floor, waiting for rescuers, while a horde of animated corpses lurked just a few feet away on the far side of a protective bulkhead. On another monitor he watched a couple of zombies ripping at the technician he had seen in the hall pushing a cart a few minutes ago. Yet another monitor revealed a group of soldiers in biohazard gear huddled between a pair of closed doors, conversing heatedly about their predicament.

  "Yes, you have things buttoned up really nice," Gant repeated.

  Another monitor looked in on the Specimen Containment area where Gant had almost died. The fog of PX gas was lifting as it — as well as the monsters of that room — filtered out through the jammed bulkhead. He saw what remained of that slaughter: discarded firearms, a couple of limbs, and a few cadavers representing those cases where a guard had managed to destroy the fungal core of a creature.

  "Yes, you have everything under control, don't you? Let's see what we can do about that."

  His eyes widened and seemed to glow in the electronic reflection from the monitors. Gant's hand then went to the levers — one after another — and turned, raising the containment doors. The barricades between zombies and what remained of the base's personnel lifted, allowing the slaughter to begin anew. The images played on the grainy security camera footage like a silent movie.

  Pearl and her technician friend watched in horror as the door rose and a wall of walking dead swooped down on them. Pearl tried to run but a rotting hand snagged her white lab coat. By the time she pulled her arms free of the sleeves another creature — one without legs but still mobile enough — tackled her by the ankles. As she disappeared beneath the horde, Gant saw one of her ears get bitten off.

  The squad of arguing guards put aside their differences as the bulkhead protecting their unit withdrew to the ceiling. Automatic rifles spewed barrel flashes and smoke, knocking a few of the charging animated corpses to the ground, some permanently. But the ranks of the undead had swelled exponentially due to the failure of Waters's counteragent. The mob that attacked the security detachment included zombies wearing the same hazmat clothing as that of the soldiers, although in much less pristine condition.

  Any semblance of organized resistance crumbled as the mob smashed into the squad. Gant saw two guards break free of the zombies and run, but most were tripped, pushed, or tackled. Despite a few extra seconds of time due to the biohazard gear, once the soldiers were on the ground they were as doomed as overtu
rned turtles.

  All of these images of murder played on the video monitors, the light from which reflected in Thom Gant's wide, angry eyes. His smile did not fade, but it became more sinister; as if he were a devil enjoying the tortures of the pit.

  "Burn," he growled at the monitors. "Burn, you son of a bitches."

  Stacy shifted uneasily, her eyes switching back and forth between the subdued guard sitting dejectedly in the corner and Thom Gant's relish at the destruction. Finally her conscience demanded that she speak.

  "What are you doing? "

  "I told you," he answered without diverting his attention from the video monitors. "I told you I was going to burn this place down. And this is just the start."

  "Why? We had them sealed up. We have a radio now."

  He pulled his attention away from the carnage and took two steps toward her. Anger exuded form his every pore, to the point that she was intimidated into retreating a pace.

  "After what they did on Tioga, here, to you and me, to Costa, and maybe even to Jupiter Wells, how can you even ask that?" He pointed toward the big window at the front of the booth that looked out on an empty hall. "They are getting what they deserve. This is the fruit of their evil. And let me tell you something else, Dr. Stacy. This is our job."

  Her eyes glanced around him toward one of the monitors, where a zombie had cornered a hazmat-suited soldier, who fired bullet after ineffective bullet. The walking corpse seemed to dance with the impacts before diving in for the kill.

  Gant repeated, "What did you think was going to happen? We would arrest Waters, Monroe, and his staff? Put them on trial so the world could see that zombies are real? That there is a parasite that could turn the dead into biological war machines? No, Dr. Stacy, you are not in that world anymore. This is what I did not want you to see. This is why I did not want you on this mission or visiting sublevel six. You now live on a whole new level, where nightmares aren't just dreams, and it is your job to stop them."

  She could not reply; her mouth just hung open.

  A buzzer grabbed their attention. A light on the console directed Gant to a monitor separate from the others. This one overlooked the garage area at the base's entrance.

  There stood Terrance Monroe, briefcase in hand, wearing a golf shirt and khaki shorts as if it were casual Friday at work.

  "This is Monroe. Open up. And tell Dr. Waters to meet me in my office immediately."

  Gant slid into one of the chairs, leaned forward, and placed his hands on the console. He stared at the monitor for a moment and then examined the array of buttons and levers beneath the garage camera. English labels made it easy to find the words "outer door" over one switch, which he pulled. As the outer door locked and sealed, automatic lights flickered on in the garage.

  Gant saw a tiny joystick on the console and worked it, panning the camera side to side to see that Monroe was, in fact, all alone.

  "Hurry up," he yammered and then glanced at his watch. "Tell Waters I need the results of the blocking agent, too. Now open this damn door."

  Thom found a button marked microphone and pushed it.

  "Hello, Terrance."

  Monroe's face turned red and he seemed poised to shout something about disrespect at the camera, but he stopped himself short of an outburst.

  "Identify yourself. Who is this?"

  "You know, I have been thinking about the last thing you said to me yesterday, before you left the island."

  Monroe cocked his head, shifted his feet nervously, and guessed, "Major Gant?"

  "I admit that I am starting to think that you made a good point."

  "You are in the security room? Listen, Major, surrender and I promise you will not be subjected to any more tests. You will have to remain here for a while, but you will be well treated. I apologize for Dr. Waters. He can get a little overzealous."

  "Sometimes you do have to make the hard choices … for the greater good," Gant continued.

  "Major Gant, listen. I understand how you must feel. But what we're doing here, it's for the sake of all of humanity. Come down here, and we’ll talk. If you aren't convinced, I promise you safe passage off the island."

  Dr. Stacy said from behind, "Thom, don't do it. We need him. I found artifacts in one of the storage areas that seem to be the blueprints for this parasite. I'm talking about treasures from the ancient world. There's a lot more here than just zombies and a couple of crazy extremists. There’s some kind of connection with the Minoans. I'm talking about stuff that is thousands of years old."

  He turned to her and said, "I heard you say something to Waters about that. That is very interesting, Doctor." His wide eyes and distant tone, however, suggested that he found it anything but interesting.

  "What do you say, Major?" Monroe's voice came over the speaker. "Let me in and we can talk."

  Thom turned back to the camera, considered for a moment, and then told Monroe, "Okay, Terrance, come on in. …"

  Terrance Monroe stood in the garage with beads of sweat rolling down his back, and not all of the perspiration could be attributed to the heat.

  How had Major Gant gotten loose and invaded the security booth? Did the garrison know he was at large?

  He started to think that Waters might be right; that the men their sponsors had provided were not adequate in numbers, training, or intelligence. As much as he despised guns and soldiers, he understood that a project such as this needed security on a variety of levels.

  Regardless, the project was ready to proceed. The organism had spread faster than their original forecasts, meaning that it could do more damage — or rather, repair to Mother Earth — than originally anticipated, while the PX ensured that they could quell the outbreaks once they reached desired levels. If the blocking agent proved successful they would have all the elements required to implement the plan.

  Of course, that plan would be implemented on his schedule, not the sponsors'.

  Major Gant's temporary escape was only a bump in the road. They would get him back and this time they would shoot him dead on the spot. To hell with more testing; Gant was far too dangerous, as this incident proved.

  The interior door rose, just as Gant had promised. Several soldiers stood there waiting for Monroe, along with Dr. Waters, who looked strangely disheveled.

  Then Terrance Monroe saw that the group of soldiers and technicians who greeted him stood in shredded, bloody clothes and stared at him through pasty white eyes.

  The mob moved into the garage, and Terrance Monroe had nowhere to go.

  Major Gant watched the swarm chase down and rip the man to pieces, stopping their pursuit only when he lay on the ground in pool of gore, waiting for his turn to become a walking corpse.

  When the show had ended, he stood up from the console and turned to face Dr. Stacy, who gaped at him through teary eyes while holding the AKM in shaking hands.

  "So is that it, then? Is that it?"

  As his blood rage faded with that final act of revenge, Gant held his hand up to try and calm her.

  "Listen, Doctor—"

  "So there it is. There's no difference between you and Waters or Monroe. What he said to us on the plane … he could have been talking about you."

  Gant thought back to their flight from Tioga to this chamber of horrors. For some reason, he knew to what she referred.

  He mumbled Waters's words: "Sometimes in order to defeat the monsters, you must become a monster."

  A cluster of beeps from the radar display broke off their conversation.

  25

  Captain Campion rode inside a big Sea Knight dual-rotor helicopter, one of six such choppers flying toward an island that did not appear on any charts. Below them, a few miles behind, came the small naval task force he essentially commanded, sailing across calm waters with as much speed as they could muster.

  He spoke into a transmitter that coded and sent his voice thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean, back to the Darwin Research Facility on the grounds of Fort Irwin, Califor
nia.

  "We think the intelligence is good. Sergeant Franco seemed convinced of the guy's sincerity, plus aerial recon confirmed the presence of a land mass."

  Lieutenant Colonel Thunder answered, "We've checked and rechecked the maps. As far as we can tell, this place could belong to a whole bunch of nations, including New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines, or even the Federated States of Micronesia, which would mean the United States could — theoretically — be responsible for the defense of this island."

  "Ma'am, if I hear you correctly I'm leading a military task force to recon and possibly attack someone's sovereign territory, but we don't know who that might be, and we — that is the U.S. military — might be the defending force?"

  "General Friez said you should not worry about that. He's called the State Department three times since we received the info. If this island ends up being the source of the outbreak on Tioga, you won't find any government who will be willing to take responsibility. You are cleared to use whatever force is necessary to combat the threat. No one will ask any questions."

  While it was in Campion's nature to worry about everything, he answered with a basic, "Roger that, Colonel."

  "What about the freighter you pulled the prisoner from?"

  He assured, "It's being taken care of …"

  * * *

  From the depths of the ocean came one of the sea's most effective yet silent killers as the obsidian hull of the USS La Jolla broke the surface surrounded by foaming saltwater. Its profile presented the trademark fin-like conning tower as well as a rather awkward tank affixed to its spine that was the boat's dry dock shelter.

  Inside the sleek body of the Los Angeles-class attack submarine, orders were issued and alarms sounded.

  Ahead of the predator listed the unmarked freighter, now devoid of any human life despite the illusion of a crowd congregating on the deck among a few drifting streams of black smoke.

  The man-made hunter of the depths seemed to regard the broken ship for a long second before striking with its sharp teeth.

  A storm of bubbles off the bow announced the action, and a moment later a white capsule broke the surface of the water in front of the sub. In the blink of an eye the top of the capsule blew off, releasing a Harpoon anti-ship missile that rode a plume of vapor and smoke at sea-skimming altitude.