LZR-1143: Infection

by Bryan James

  To believe that these experiments could lead to any result but catastrophic seemed folly to me in hindsight, but as I looked into the cages and stared at the brownish red stains on the floor, I realized that I had the luxury of looking back over the results without ever having been encumbered by the burden of the dreams.

  I still wanted to believe that Maria bore that burden.

  Peering slowly around the corner, gun firmly in hand, I caught a hint of movement as the door to a large cage at the very end of the hallway swung shut. I moved quickly forward, as silently as I could, stooping over to reduce my visibility. Reaching the now-closed door, I looked into the cage. It was much larger than the others - indeed, it was the size of a small barn, with a commensurately large exterior door that sat closed against its frame on the opposite side of the enclosure.

  Fragments of the now-familiar brackish goo were spread across the floor, chunks of more solid substance interspersed with the dried liquid. The stench was unbelievable; like a butcher’s shop laid bare to a sweltering heat for days on end, the odor was almost visible.

  As I brought my hand to my nose, I saw the bastard. He was moving toward the exit door; more precisely, he was moving toward a steel box located at chest level to the right of the door. He was trying to get out into the grounds, the crazy shit!

  I grabbed the handle to the door, and it refused to budge. Kopland, alerted to my presence by the sound of the gate clanging against the frame, looked up and hurried forward, pulling a key from his pocket and inserting it into the gate controls. I leveled the pistol, aiming carefully at the locking mechanism.

  The exterior gate hummed, as if awakened from a long sleep.

  I fired, shielding my eyes from the sparks and the loose metal as the lock, warped and shattered by the bullet, loosened its hold on the doorframe. I ripped the door backwards and sprinted through, running toward Kopland.

  The exterior gate was now opening, inch by inch, the gates sliding to the side slowly. He wouldn’t be able to fit through before I got within range.

  He realized this too, turning to face me and taking the last blue vial from his pocket and holding it up.

  “I was really hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” he said, watching the gates move inexorably open over his shoulder and then looking back to me.

  “I did intend that at least one sample of this chemical survive for the benefit of the believers that should be spared the full impact of God’s wrath.” He smiled a lopsided smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

  “But such is the nature of God’s eternal damnation. Had He intended for this to be disseminated, He would not have put you in my path.” As his hand moved toward the top of the vial, I noticed movement behind him.

  The gunshot! Those things had been clustered in the front of the building, and had doubled back at the sound of the shot. Several creatures had appeared behind him, and I could see their rotting faces through the slowly widening crevasse between the gate doors. In twenty seconds they would be through.

  Somehow, Kopland was ignorant of their approach, likely due to the noise of the grinding gatehouse gears.

  I lowered the gun and crouched to the ground, placing the gun on the filthy floor. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll just step back, and you can go ahead. No one will stop you.”

  I was still thirty feet away from him. Too far to do anything in the short time it would take him to empty the vial.

  “I think not; your interference has only proven that God’s will is absolute. Had he intended for salvation to be available to the believers, he would not have delivered you to this place. I had thought to protect my plan by remaining here, but you have proven his will.”

  The first ghoul had squeezed through, its rotting hands pulling the emaciated remainder of its corpse between the large doors.

  “His will be done,” he said piously, clutching the stopper with his right hand and moving to pull it free.

  The creature moved over the last few feet separating it from its clueless victim; it opened its mouth, tilting its head and bringing it forward against Kopland’s exposed neck with a viciously quick jerk as its arms wrapped around Kopland’s torso.

  I had to move fast.

  An earsplitting scream erupted from Kopland’s throat as his neck was torn open, exposing severed, writhing red and blue veins that spurted blood over the face and head of his captor, whose jaws had clenched firmly on his flesh and were already moving against one another, chewing on the portion of his neck that it had dislodged. Its eyes were half closed, as in a semblance of culinary ecstasy.

  The arms around his torso were apparently strong enough to prevent Kopland from resisting with his hands, and he shook his body like a dog trying to dry itself, but the creature clung on with an intensity borne out of raw, primitive hunger. It shot its head forward again, this time choosing the portion of the neck that joined with the shoulder, pulling eagerly back with strips of tendon and muscle streaming from its jaws. Kopland shook harder, his screams becoming sobs of agony.

  I had picked up the gun and was running forward as the next zombie came through the opening between gates, clambering as quickly as it could toward what appeared to be a delectable feast. I raised the pistol and fired at the second creature, a small Asian woman in a hospital gown, but it suffered only a glancing blow to the shoulder and stumbled forward, immune to the wound. Reaching Kopland as the woman moved forward, I grabbed the vial, still clutched in his left hand.

  He wouldn’t release it.

  The second creature moved toward me, and I raised the gun, sure of a head shot at this proximity. I pulled the trigger as the woman’s head emerged from behind Kopland, apparently more interested in the free-ranging meal than sharing in her friend’s.

  The hammer fell, and an empty click echoed from the chamber. I looked to the revolver in my hand: all six chambers had been fired. Third and fourth zombies meandered through the constantly widening doorway as I struggled with Kopland, whose strength was ebbing as the creature on his back took a third bite, choosing this time to dislodge the doctor’s left ear.

  I kicked at the creature now grasping for my left arm, and stumbled as it moved against me from behind Kopland. Suddenly, the vial came free of Kopland’s hand, as he was pulled to the ground by his assailant. His knees thumped heavily to the ground and I heard a sharp snapping sound, as if a sturdy limb had been shattered from a forceful impact.

  Kopland screamed, clutching for my gun hand. Off balance from the combination of my own attacker’s weight and Kopland’s unexpected tumble, I fell toward the ground. Unconsciously, I stretched my hand out to stop my fall.

  But the woman was there first.

  Grasping my arm in both hands, she unwittingly used my momentum against me, bringing my wrist to her mouth before I could adjust.

  The pain was excruciating. Her yellowed teeth knifed into my skin like superheated drill bits, each one piercing what felt like hundreds of thousands of nerve endings in their journey to the bone. My arm was on fire, and as she moved her head rapidly from side to side in an attempt to dislodge the flesh, I kicked out wildly with my leg, scoring a lucky shot that brought her to her knees and shook free from its tenacious grip.

  I cradled my wrist in my arm as I stumbled back to the gate, unbelieving of the fate to which I had been so quickly damned. Looking down to my other hand, staring at the blue vial now covered in my blood; staring at the vaccine that I had acquired too late, I felt the hot tears of frustration burn my skin as they streamed down my face. Reaching the ruined door separating the cage from the hallway, I stumbled back to the stairwell. Kopland’s screams serenaded me as I ran. I didn’t look back.

  Chapter 30

  I had destroyed the lock. They would follow me inside, and there was nothing I could do about it. So I ran faster. In my delusion and my insanity, I thought I heard the steady thumping of helicopter rotor blades, but my head was a whirlwind of thoughts and images; my blood an imagined river of inky infection that coursed t
hrough ruined veins. In a panic and fear inspired delusion, I was convinced I was hearing things. But as I looked up, hoping for the best, I was rewarded with the impossible.

  Hartliss’s chopper was descending slowly, rotor blades beating the air slowly as it circled the facility. I didn’t pause to ask how. I sped up, knowing I had mere minutes to pick up Kate and get her to the roof.

  Slamming back into the stairwell, I cursed the inventor of the bar-handle door. That door that was ever so easy to open when you were carrying a latte in one hand and a cruller in the other also made a very accessible handle for the cognitively challenged ghoul bent on devouring your flesh.

  I reached the door to the lab and slammed my open palm against it three times, shouting Kate’s name. Seconds became days as I waited for a response, for the door to open. As I leaned my head against the steel in the hope of discerning movement or signs of life from inside, her face appeared. Wan and pale, but alive, she smiled. I didn’t.

  “I need a syringe,” I said, pushing past her into the lab. Her confused look followed me as I pulled gauze and aprons out of a med kit fastened to the wall, breaking the seal on the sought-after item and plunging its needle into the vial.

  “How much do I need?” I asked, pausing before pulling back.

  “What are you doing? We don’t know anything about that drug. We need to wait.”

  “Can’t wait. The doc seemed to think this would be enough for a bunch of people, so I’m going to say a small amount will work.”

  She approached me, dragging her leg painfully behind. The bleeding had stopped, but the wound was in need of treatment. “You’re not making any sense… when did he say that? Upstairs? Why do you need to be inoculated right now? Can’t it wait?”

  I withdrew the needle from the vial carefully, gently inserting the sealed vial into Kate’s tactical vest pocket and zippering it shut. She looked up at me curiously.

  “No, it can’t,” I said, abruptly inserting the needle into her upper arm and stabbing the plunger forward. She yelled in surprise, jerking back instinctively. But not before the chemical had been delivered.

  “Jesus! What the fuck?”

  I held up my hand, turning my wrist toward her and plainly exhibiting my death sentence as I tossed the needle onto the floor.

  “We don’t have much time, we need to get you to the roof.” I turned back to the door, asking as I did so, “Can you make it up the stairs?”

  “God, Mike… how? What…”

  “Never mind, I’ll carry you.” Time for the cowboy show again. One last time.

  Before she could protest, I threaded my arm beneath her legs and behind her back and lifted. She was surprisingly light for her height, and she instinctively threw her arms around my neck as I moved forward.

  “Where are… where can we go?” she asked, not protesting her carriage but seemingly resigned to a fate she hadn’t shared with me.

  “The last time I had this idea, you yelled at me,” I said, remembering the school.

  “The roof. What is it with you and roofs?”

  “I think some friends are here,” I said shortly.

  We reached the door, and we started up the stairs, moving slower than I would have liked, considering that I knew more creatures were making their way toward us from the open cage. It was just a matter of time.

  We reached the ground floor and as I turned toward the last flight of stairs to the roof. As I stepped up onto the last landing, I knew I heard the sound of a single gunshot over the thumping of a helicopter rotor. I moved faster, my legs burning in protest and my injured wrist screaming its dismay. Kate held tight, her head pressed against my chest.

  “Mike, I don’t feel so hot,” she said groggily.

  From below us, the door from the cages slammed open, creatures stumbling through haphazardly, glazed reddened eyes searching for what they found above them.

  Too late, I thought, as they started their slow progress up the stairs and we reached the door to the roof. I recognized the bitch that bit me and, for one irrational moment, thought about jumping her ass right then and there, with or without a gun.

  Do it, you’re fucked anyway. It’ll make you feel better, you know.

  “It’s OK, I have a good feeling about this,” I said to both of them, kicking open the last door and squinting against the daylight.

  Hartliss’s chopper stood in all its magnificent glory, blades slowing to a stop even as we emerged from the stairwell and slammed the door behind us. Beyond the vehicle, the gates of Hades had opened. The open fields within the grounds swarmed with the rotting, wandering forms of the living dead. Stumbling into one another in aimless, directionless oblivion, they moved individually and en masse toward the building, driven by an unending desire to feed. Knowing that their prey lurked somewhere behind those doors. I shuddered despite myself, keenly appreciative that only ten feet of cement and their lack of fine motor skills kept us safe.

  But as I took in this scene, my eyes returned to the chopper and I recognized that all was not as it should be. In front of the open cargo bay doors, Hartliss was sprawled on the stone-covered roof, his youthful face contorted in pain and his hands clutching a stomach that was covered in crimson. He heard the door slam open and shut and turned toward us.

  “Run! He’s a bloody fake! He’s not…” I jerked in surprise as a gunshot interrupted his delivery. His shoulder spit blood into the air and he grunted, falling back to the roof. He was silent.

  From his position inside the cabin of the helicopter emerged Fred, pistol in hand, heretofore innocent and retarded, face smiling in delight.

  “Pancake, you stupid fucks,” he said, leaping from the helicopter to the roof and training his gun on us.

  My brain exploded, my inner voice a confusing firestorm of conflicting sensory signals. Fred had a gun? And he had added some words to his diatribe. Kate was laughing behind me, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what was so funny.

  “I’m supposing you succeeded in your little quest?” he asked. My brain refused to acknowledge that he was using non-breakfast cuisine-related words. All I heard was pancake.

  Kate was crying now.

  “Hey, asshole. I’m kind of on a clock here. Empty the pockets.”

  Fred was holding a gun.

  How remarkable. I should get it from him before he hurts himself. Where was his frying pan?

  Her voice breaking, Kate spoke, weakly. “Mike?”

  Here, sir! That was me!

  Why didn’t I answer? My mouth wouldn’t listen to my brain. Or my brain wasn’t making sense. That was it; my mouth had it right, it was the brain that was off. I should try closing my eyes. I did.

  I opened them again, and Fred was closer. But he was still holding a gun.

  I cursed.

  “I thought there was something unusual about you,” I heard Kate say, her voice small and distant. “But I couldn’t place it.” She sounded resigned. “You were very convincing.”

  “Let’s just say that my employer provides excellent on the job training. Or I should say ex-employer; I’m freelance now, given the degeneration of society, collapse of civilization, hordes of the undead, and all that. Looks like you had kind of a rough time of it down there. Find what you were looking for, did you?”

  It was definitely Fred talking.

  “Why?” It was the one word-the only word-I could muster.

  “Didn’t you ever wonder why you were kept drugged and secluded? Why rapists and serial killers were afforded more mental liberty than you were back at King’s Point? Since you got out, been having flashbacks, have you? Fuck, man, get with it! You can see this is a government deal; didn’t your internal conspiracy theorist come up with something?” He shook his head in disdain and amusement.

  “You had seen and heard a little too much, if you get my drift. These fuckers,” he gestured around him, at the grounds we could see from our vantage point, “they came from somewhere. Here in fact. But you think our government want
ed this kind of dirty laundry aired in public?”

  “I was set up.” My head was clearing. My hand hurt like hell, but my mind was free of the blazing voices and the muddle of confounding disbelief. The pain in my hand reminded me of my fate. We didn’t have much time.

  “Fuck an A, man. You were set up to go in, and you were screwed once you arrived. We had you on so many cocktails, if you had been in there much longer, you wouldn’t remember how to hold your dick when you piss, let alone that your wife was a living corpse when you got home. Best part is, even if you had, who would have believed you?” The bastard laughed.

  “Didn’t you wonder how you got locked in back at the Point? Wake up!”

  And I saw her again, one painful, last time. And I saw what she held in her hand. A syringe. A steel syringe. Filled with blue liquid. I unconsciously raised my hand, looking for the long gone pin prick in my hand that I had felt when she attacked me.

  “But I digress,” he said, voice serious again. “Let’s see it, and maybe I let you guys live, such as it is.” He looked pointedly at the grounds, where hundreds of creatures swarmed over the dry grass. Their moans drifted on the cool air, the grunts and scratches from the door behind me lending the entire situation an air of surreal urgency.

  I reached into my pocket, withdrawing a clip for my pistol, long forgotten in the passages below. Hiding it in my palm, hoping to buy just a little more time as I moved to the door, I gestured toward Fred, hoping he couldn’t sense my dissemblance.

  “What, you just gonna take it and sell it? You’re going to abandon your nation, perhaps the world, for a few bucks to the highest bidder?”

  “Come on, man,” he said, cocking his head incredulously. “This place is fucked! Hartliss and I heard it after we got the bird in the air again. Caught some com chatter from an AWAC plane off the New York coast. Midwest cities are falling every day, they’ve reached the West Coast, and the Florida line has been breached in too many holes to count. Reports of infection in Canada, Mexico, Central and South America. Even Britain and France. Time to cut our losses and move elsewhere. I’m thinking a nice little Caribbean island somewhere. They can’t swim, you know.”