LZR-1143: Infection

by Bryan James

  Anaru followed as the first of the children came within feet of the door. A girl, maybe all of ten, grabbed his arm. He shook the arm violently, but was unable to withdraw from her vise like grip. Disgust passed across his face as he brought up a massive leg and kicked her sharply under the knees, taking her support from under her. As she struggled to reach his arm with her teeth, he leveraged that same foot down on her throat and pushed. The firm sole of his combat boot crushed the soft tissue housing her larynx, and the visceral snapping of her spine cracked like a gunshot as he twisted his boot abruptly to the side. He shook off the hand as he backed around the corner.

  A small boy with a ravaged torso and bloody arms moaned at me as I followed behind Anaru and Kate and skirted the corner of the building, nearly tripping on a hidden downspout protruding from the structure. His braces gleamed brightly in the light from the moon, small particulates of what was most likely human flesh clung to the metal. I swung the metal butt of my rifle in a wide arc, striking a glancing blow to the side of the head but knocking the child to the ground nevertheless. The children behind him stepped clumsily over his fallen body and continued toward me as I moved away.

  In front of us, Lansing had encountered a group of three. They came at him from behind the shelter of two large trees behind the cantina, surprising him as he jogged forward. He came to a halt, bringing his rifle up in front of him like a lance and smoothly jamming the long bayonet into the eye of the closest zed. It’s body crumpled to the ground like a bag of rocks as he pulled the metal free and swung the butt into the face of a small Asian child that had reached for his leg.

  The tiny creature was flung back onto the ground as he reversed the stroke, and again stabbed the bayonet toward the head of the last zed, a rather chubby girl bearing pigtails and a too-tight camp shirt. His stroke went wide and scored a dark, unbleeding line into her pudgy cheek. Having overextended himself on the stroke, Lansing stumbled forward and fell to the ground.

  Before the large girl could capitalize on her small victory, Anaru was there. His two by four, an unwieldy weapon for the mortal man, was a whirling circle of death in his massive arms. The dense wood caught the creature under the jaw on the upstroke, snapping its head back severely and forcing closed its gaping mouth. Before it could adjust, the down stroke ended its campaign, crushing the top of the skull and forcing the head down several inches of the spine, like a shrunken skull atop a voodoo pole. Anaru helped Lansing up as Kate and I reached their position and we bolted into the tree line behind the last dormitory.

  We soon left the children behind, their small, ungainly bodies unable to follow at our speed. We moved quickly and spread out in the trees, stepping carefully but purposefully through the dense green foliage. The high canopy of leaves and branches obscured most of the moonlight. I struggled to make out forms and shapes in the dark as shadows turned every bush and fallen log into a concealed creature. My heart beat quickly and heavily in my chest and I was soon gasping for breath as the slow but inexorable jog sapped me of what strength I had regained in sleep. I followed the sound of the others’ passage, hoping with each footfall not to twist my ankle or break my leg in the utter dark.

  Owls and bats traded positions on tree limbs far above us as we stumbled blindly ahead. Suddenly, the forest ended in a graded road. We turned up the road, eyes trained to either side. A creature appeared before Anaru as he jogged along the edge of the path, and he almost disinterestedly pummeled it into the underbrush, its body spinning twice before falling inert to the ground. Two more emerged from behind us, arms raised in wanton desire as they caught sight of us. From the side of the road, more could be heard rustling in the trees. We had caught up to the creatures that had passed us earlier in the night.

  We followed the road around a bend for another mile, and were confronted with a chain link gate that stood half open. The signs on the fence and on the gate read “No Admittance: Authorized Personnel Only”.

  A “NO TRESPASSING” sign lay trampled on the ground in front of the open gate. I had to chuckle to myself, despite the circumstances.

  As early morning light broke through the trees and bathed the road with its orange glow, we filtered through the opening. Kate turned to me, breath coming in ragged spurts after the recent jog. I bent over in pain, my sides splitting and my chest heaving.

  The creatures from the woods were emerging in real numbers now. At least twenty or thirty straggled in from various emergence points along the tree line. We could hear more in the trees behind them, their moans filtering out from between the branches and behind the leaves.

  “Up the hill. To the lab. Another quarter mile.” I couldn’t speak in sentences longer than three words. My lungs were going to explode. Was it absurd to crave a beer right now? Probably. But there I was and crave one I did.

  “We need to get this gate closed first or those things are gonna follow us inside and trap us in the lab,” said Lansing, grabbing the metal frame and struggling to move the section of fencing that normally would have slid easily into its housing on the opposite side. Normally being the key word. The closing mechanism had been disabled or damaged, and the motor wouldn’t release the gate from its locked position. A gap of six feet remained unguarded. But it could have been six miles for all we cared. Even if we got in and made it to the vaccine or cure, or whatever was inside, we couldn’t get out. We would die inside with it.

  “I’ll stay,” said Anaru, tossing his two by four to the ground and unshouldering his rifle. “But I’m gonna have to use this, if you don’t mind.” His deep voice betrayed no fear or anxiety as he calmly stepped into the breach and lifted his firearm.

  “It’s suicide, man, you know that, right?” said Lansing, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder at the growing crowd. They were now no more than thirty feet from the fence. Anaru simply pointed up the hill and turned away, waving to us dismissively as he did so.

  Lansing looked at him and then to the zombies approaching at an inexorable shuffle.

  “Well fuck, I can’t let you have all the fun…” He opened fire at the oncoming zeds, taking the first two he could sight in the heads and spraying more fire into those behind.

  Lansing glanced over his shoulder at us as he found his next target. “Get up to the lab. We’ll hold ‘em as long as we can and meet you up there!” Anaru’s rifle started to speak forcefully to the oncoming creatures, and we stumbled wearily into a slow uphill jog.

  As we topped the rise and moved out of sight, I spared a final glance to the engagement below. Anaru stood in the six-foot breach, firing rapidly and carefully at head level into the horde of creatures that had materialized from the forest. Lansing stood behind him and to his right, firing between the links in the fencing at those that escaped Anaru’s suppressing fire. There were more than a hundred now, and more streamed from the forest. There were too many. Anaru and Lansing didn’t have long before they’d be overrun.

  Where had they come from? We were in the mountains, far away from large populated areas. For there to be this many up here…for so many of them to be here in particular, of all places…

  Suddenly, the pieces fell together. The Colonel’s comments about some of them being older and not freshly turned, the kid’s note about two guys coming down the mountain into the camp, the sheer numbers in the forest and along the road, the gap in the fence.

  They hadn’t come to us; we had come to them. They hadn’t followed us or gone out of their way to find a meal. They were from the mountain-from the facility that we had just broken into. The week just kept getting better.

  I turned from the carnage at the gate and followed Kate’s gaze to the building before us. It was a squat, gray building with fencing enclosures stemming from the sides and obscuring the rear of the building. A large glass double doorway led into the lobby, the doors overseen by a small guard booth that stood empty to one side. The lobby was in disarray, papers strewn across the floor, a potted plant shattered against the slick, freshly polished floor.
A trashcan had fallen into an open elevator door, causing the machine to open and close repeatedly against the obstruction. A metallic ding sounded each time the doors nudged gently into the side of the garbage bin, exacerbating the eerie silence.

  From behind us, the constant rapid fire coming from the gate suddenly ceased, leaving only the sound of the elevator and our still rapid breathing from the climb up the hill.

  “Think they made it?” Kate asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “But there were a bunch of those things out there.”

  “Where to now?” she asked, conspicuously terminating the previous line of conversation.

  I moved forward to the receptionist’s desk, which sat squarely in the center of the room. “Watch the door. Tell me if you see them or any of those things. I’m going to look for a directory.”

  I righted the overturned chair behind the desk and rooted through the top drawers. Finding a slim black binder, I threw it open and searched for an index.

  “No Lansing or Anaru, but I’ve got a crowd of zombies coming up the hill,” said Kate, worry creeping into her voice. “We’re going to have company in about two minutes.”

  There. Kopland, West lab, office 300. West lab? I looked up. The elevator doors continued to open and close in an infuriatingly persistent fashion to my right. To the left was a small door marked UTILITY. Fuck, I didn’t know. I had only been here once, and I hadn’t even come inside. Should have come to the god damned Christmas parties. Wait, did they have them here? Didn’t seem likely, did it. Probably had them in a hotel or a restaurant somewhere. I wonder if…

  “Very close now!” said Kate, struggling to slide a couch in front of the doors.

  Right. Zombies. Cure. Man, I was tired. And hungry. I would kill for a burger and fries. Concentrate, I thought. I shook my head, clearing away these absurd flashings of fantasy.

  Must be through the elevators, I thought. And there wasn’t a second floor, so they must go down. Of course. Let’s couple zombie attacks with my claustrophobia.

  “Elevators,” I said curtly, as the first creature arrived at the glass doors. It was an old zombie, clearly having turned much longer ago than four days. Tatters of brownish gray skin hung from its arms and droopy, lifeless jowls sagged from its constantly moving jaws. Its bloody, dirty hands slammed against the doors with a power that belied its appearance. Kate shrieked in surprise as the doors shook, despite having watched its approach.

  “Let’s go,” I said, kicking the trash can out of the doors and holding the entrance open with an outstretch arm.

  She flew into the small space as I saw more creatures arrive outside. The sound of shattering glass followed the closing doors as I pushed the small round button happily emblazoned with the number 3, and the motors above our heads whirred into action. We dropped slowly, the elevator our chariot as we descended into what I hoped was not a hell of human making.

  Chapter 26

  Elevator music was a movie industry joke. Mostly because it was an easy gag. You take a suspenseful scene, with bullets flying and emotions at atmospheric heights, and you inject some Michael Bolton or Kenny G while your characters are riding an elevator. It always seemed cliche to me, but I know I always laughed anyway. Like I said, an easy gag.

  I say this simply by way of illustrating why it was weird to be in an elevator with no music. Just the sound of the motors and the memory of the moans that seemed a constant and irrepressible refrain over the past four days. Given the choice, I’d take the Kenny G. But only by a hair.

  With a jerk, the elevator stopped at sub level 3. The doors opened slowly into a brightly lit hallway that extended approximately a hundred feet in front of us. I remembered the Park as we stepped out, fluorescent lighting providing a sickeningly constant white light that fizzled overhead. Every three or four seconds, one light or another would flicker briefly with the abruptly-ending buzz of a mosquito meeting its maker on a bug zapper. We stepped out of the elevator slowly, hesitantly.

  “You think there are any zombies left down here?” I asked Kate as I moved a trashcan in front of the doors to the elevator to prevent them from closing behind us. God only knows what kind of knowledge those things retain, but even a lucky hit on the “3” button from the top floor would bring us the kind of company that wasn’t welcome right now. Best to keep this little Kenny G wagon with us for the time being.

  “I think we’ve got to assume that the answer to that question is yes until we know otherwise,” she said, moving forward into the hallway and peering carefully into the doorway of the first office we passed. Names were stenciled on the doors, marking their inhabitants or their functions, depending on the room. We passed three scientists’ offices, two labs, and a break room before getting to Kopland’s office. The name was still on it, but the door was locked. No light from inside.

  “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t come all this way to have a locked door stand in my way,” I said, pulling my pistol and aiming at the lock. Kate’s hands shot to her ears in anticipation of the echoing boom from the gun. I depressed the trigger and the pistol kicked impressively against my palm as the bullet tore into the wooden frame around the handle. My ears were ringing as I gave the weakened door a kick. It swiveled smoothly in against the backstop, and we entered. Kate switched the lights on.

  Suddenly, from the hallway outside, we heard movement. Cursing myself for not thinking of the sound the gunshot would make, I sprinted to the door behind Kate. I looked out toward the end of the hallway, away from the elevator. A door to a lab at the far end stood askew. The sounds were coming from that room.

  I gestured to Kate to stay put and walked into the hall, pistol held up at head level before me, finger resting on the trigger. I moved each foot forward tentatively, as if a landmine waited for each step. Trying to make no noise as I approached, I drew in my breath as I neared the door. The door stood too narrowly open to afford entrance or a good scan of the room, so I nudged it ever so slightly with my right foot as I trained the gun on the slowly opening space.

  The lights inside were off, but from the light in the hallway I could make out stainless steel tables and lab equipment. As I stepped into the doorway, a slight whiff of rancid air seemed to blow past me, but it was gone too fast for me to be sure I had really smelled it.

  Beakers and test tubes lined the walls behind sinks and Bunsen burners; a pair of large, glass front refrigerators stood to my right. No sign of the noisemaker. I slowly scanned the darkness a final time and reached my left hand awkwardly across my body toward the light switch, intending on making a last sweep in the full light.

  That’s when I saw the monkey.

  He was sitting against the wall to my left, below a rack of beakers and a cabinet full of glass jars. His eyes tracked my movements as I withdrew my hand without having switched on the lights. His dark brown hair and large eyes were intent but unblinking. Long arms sat still on either side of his body as his legs pushed against the floor and slowly drew him into a slouching stand. I laughed at myself, lowering my weapon as I threw over my shoulder to Kate, “It’s just a damn monkey.”

  My attention was only diverted for a second, but it was in that time he started to cross the short distance between us. And it was as he moved, that I noticed that he moved differently, slowly. He lacked the normal simian grace, but instead strode forward in jerks and starts, eyes still unblinking. He left a puddle of some indescribable liquid behind, spreading slowly on the polished floor as he shuffled forward. As his mouth opened and closed compulsively, a high-pitched squeal carried from his throat. Like a moan, but in the language of the jungle.

  This was not a normal monkey.

  I backed into the doorway, slamming my hand against the light switch as I did so. The fluorescent flickered on slowly, casting the dead white light over the animal as it moved forward. His previously concealed undead features sprang into view, the reddened eyes and grayish-brown face glowing in the new glare. His yellowed teeth were broken at plac
es, but whether due to his being a primate or owing to the disease, I couldn’t tell. Too shocked to react, I waited too long to raise my gun.

  He leaped from the floor toward my out-raised arm, which was still attached to the light switch by an invisible tether of surprise. I jerked back, but couldn’t move my arm fast enough as his grubby paws caught hold of my sleeve. Stumbling forward, I shook my arm violently, trying to dislodge his tenacious grip.

  In stark contrast to his human brethren, he still possessed a modicum of agility and pushed against my legs and torso with his tiny legs. He was a spider monkey of some sort, not a larger chimp or orangutan, so he was small. But he was a feisty little bastard.

  As I fell back against the sink and counter against the far wall, he pulled his head and mouth up and lunged for my arm, shrieking all the while. Unable to use my gun in such close quarters, I chose the manual method. I swung my arm around as fast as I could, aiming for the six-foot storage cabinet on my left. He continued to shriek as I pummeled his rancid black and white head against the sheet metal door. The solid thunk of the metal was a satisfying sound, as the shriek cut off momentarily. The impact had left a red and brown smear on the door, but he was down, not out.

  He continued to hold my arm, lunging for my flesh, and I swung again, shaking my hand violently and urgently, finally swinging him into the door again. And again. And again.

  After repeated blows, he fell to the floor. His grip had finally slackened enough to shake him off, and his tiny little corpse made a pathetic splattering sound as it hit the smooth tile. His legs twitched, unable to die. As Kate appeared in the doorway, I leaned forward, thinking to confirm his demise, and his body twitched once again, small hand shooting out from beneath his body. He reached for my leg, and I remembered the gun in my hand. His furry little head exploded in pieces of grayish goo as Kate screamed in surprise.