“Val-” he started but she wouldn’t hear it. Val lunged forward as if she were going to strike him again but didn’t. The Captain didn’t even flinch. Val went to the semi-circle entrance where the wind howled across the opening.
The Captain breathed heavily and walked past his men to be alone.
McCoy, who remained inside the vehicle, leaned out the window to watch Val’s actions. Although his back still bothered him, he considered the pain secondary to seeing a fight. Unashamed he looked Val up and down as she passed by. Alex came back to the vehicle to get his water bottle and McCoy commented, “There’s nothing sexier than an angry woman.”
“Back to your old self I see,” Alex replied.
“You know, I really don’t normally care for black haired women, but she’s fine. Do you think it’s too soon?”
Alex considered McCoy's stupidity unworthy of a reply.
Conflicted for a moment, Brady watched Val at the opening. Coming up slowly, he joined her and became a silhouette against the late afternoon landscape himself.
“I’m sorry,” he offered, not knowing what else to say. She turned to look at him. Tears streamed down her face in uncontrolled billows. “How long did you know him?”
“Go die, Brady. I don’t need your pity.” She stepped away from him to the far end of the entrance. Brady rejoined the others.
∙ • ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙
With little further delay, the Captain soon had everyone suiting up to explore the interior. McCoy finally exited the vehicle and someone else readied his weapon for him. The outer doors hung open, which they took to be a very good sign that no one else had taken up residence there. Some of the troop’s guns already had mounted lights, the rest simply taped flashlights to the muzzles. The cost to accuracy did not concern them especially in such close quarters.
The Captain took a moment to survey his men finding them all in order. With a quick glance at Val (who still stood distantly from the rest), the Captain breathed deeply and opened the door. The second man held the door open but the third insisted the door-holder go in second. The team followed the Captain inside with McCoy dragging along in the rear. Immediately inside they were greeted by darkness pierced only by their flashlight’s radiant columns.
Arriving at the first turn, the Captain placed a marker so they could find their way back if needed. Like tiny rats scampering down the sewer the team moved deeper into the bowels of the ominous mountain. They came to a set of doors on either side of the hallway. The Captain motioned for the second and third person to inspect the rooms. As expected, they discovered undisturbed bodies. With the opening of these doors came an unpleasant odor. Rotting flesh combined with the failed ventilation systems proved a horrific combination. Unlike any smell they’d encountered on the outside, this one came with crippling intensity. The smell alone could have been enough to keep scavengers out of such a place.
One of the men, unable to stomach such a foul smell, vomited into the darkness. The act made a disgusting splashing noise as the contents of the man’s stomach collided with the concrete floor. It would have been mildly humorous under different circumstances. Everyone paused until he’d finished. With the process done, the Captain pressed forward without a word.
“I’m fine by the way,” the soldier announced. “Thanks for everyone’s concern.” The man’s joke helped alleviate the tension and even created a few laughs.
They came to another fork and the Captain took the left tunnel.
“Any chance you’ve been here before, Brady?” the Captain asked.
“No, sir. I think they gave tours but I never seemed to find the time.”
“For the next zombie apocalypse, could you make sure you do that,” said one of the soldiers.
“I’ll put it on my list. Maybe next time I’ll just take the cure and be done with it.”
They came at last to an important looking room. Several chairs all faced a wall of monitors. They guessed it to be a command center and thought it as good of a place as any to setup. They laid down their less important gear and the Captain divided them up into small groups to explore the facility. The rest of the daylight hours found them searching through tiny passageways and large rooms. Eventually one of the groups came upon the generators used to power the base.
The Captain ordered gasoline be brought in and the generators fired up. A great sigh of relief was breathed by all when the generators started and the emergency lights flickered on. The Captain called Brady to power on the servers and networking equipment and to figure out how to operate the security cameras. Brady bemoaned the fact that he had been asked to figure out the security cameras. Everyone assumed that since he had worked in IT he knew how all electronics operated. With some fiddling, he managed to get the cameras online and quickly routed their feed to the monitors. A pleased looked crossed the Captain’s face as he looked up and saw the road leading up to the facility. With more haggling, Brady located the ventilation system and had it working within the hour. While he worked on this, the team scavenged for beds and living quarters.
The Captain propped his feet up onto a nearby desk and leaned back in his chair with the order, “I want those outer doors closed as soon as possible. I expected a fight to get in here with it being such an ideal place. I’m not about to hand it over to the next group that comes waltzing along.”
∙ • ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙
It took several hours for Brady to research the systems that controlled the doors. In the meantime, the Captain ate and occupied himself with watching the screens. He found watching the outside world through a camera a much better way to live. As time passed, the stench lessened. The main rooms improved to where they tasted only of stale air.
With the Captain otherwise occupied, Brady strayed from his main objective and started scanning for information. Ever since he’d first learned about the possibility of a cure for cancer, it fascinated him. He researched books, magazines and eventually the internet anything he could find about the topic. It came to be somewhat of a hobby of his.
To his excitement, Brady found documents on the server describing how the test subject, mentioned earlier, had been moved to the Cheyenne Complex for further testing. He discovered a series of entries that looked promising. The victim, discovered on the eastern plains of Colorado, suffered the same zombification the world would later endure. Leonard, as he was named in the reports, seemed to go through a series of stages.
The document - written by a Colonel Alderson - read as follows:
"We received the subject from Peterson today. He’s in bad shape. Obvious signs of malnourishment. In the reports given, they say he refuses to eat any food they’ve offered him but continues to be very aggressive towards anyone. He resists all types of sedation. When I first saw the subject, he startled me. I half considered it a joke at first. He’s a zombie. Straight out of the movies. His eyes are sunken in and his lips receded to expose teeth. The staff has lovingly named him Leonard.
In initial testing, I can find little or no actual intelligence. His body seemed to be functioning at a basic level. Very animalistic. We’ve proved in tests that he doesn’t even have the mental capacity to avoid pain when food is available. He seemed to desire only live human tissue. This spawned another series of tests where we’ve concluded he feels little, if any, pain. His nerve endings simply aren’t functioning. His brain seems merely capable of identifying food and invoking rudimentary skills to obtain it.
After quite a bit of feeding, the subject is undergoing a change. Our first indication to this was the morphing of his physical appearance. Although we kept him well fed before, he never overcame the appearance of malnourishment. Although he had the strength to overcome obstacles and overpower prey, his body remained gangly. In a period of two days, his body has changed into a much more muscular version of itself. Very soon after, he’s started attempting communication. His vocabulary is very limited and has many repeated words.
We were thrilled at first to see his brain activit
y increase but as time has passed we’ve been able to do little with it. He repeats the same noises back to us over and over, despite what we attempt to do with him. No real communication has taken place. With his new body, his skills at hunting have vastly improved. He used to stalk his prey directly until he’d cornered it and could overpower it. But now his brain seems able to devise tactics. He integrates objects from his surrounding into his plans. His physical power is much more developed. He can easily overcome prey. This led to tests where we’d pit him against armed victims. With powerful lunges and sneak attacks he’s killed everything we’ve put him against.
I admit I wasn’t sure what to think of this creature at first. But now it’s become a bit of an obsession. Now that he’s progressed into this second stage, he’s much more fun. His abilities seem almost greater than an average human’s in many ways. He’s more agile, stronger, and even cunning. When all he wanted was food, I quickly grew bored of him. But now there’s potential. He’s much more like a soldier than a mindless zombie.
When we’d exhausted the bulk of his abilities in this stage, we finally had a second breakthrough. Through much more feeding than was required for the first change, he’s finally evolved into a third stage. This has proved the most fascinating of all.
His brain function has greatly exceeded that of an average human. His brain activity measures off the charts in several unusual areas. He’s become completely bent upon destruction and creation. He no longer craves massive intake of food but is more concerned with planning and higher level activities. He’s used the objects in his room to build odd structures almost like the layout of a city. He’s constantly rearranging these. But as soon as he has completed his city, he often falls into a fit of rage destroying everything in sight. He often plays with his prey instead of killing it immediately. I’ve noted what could be attempts at manipulation or coercion. I’m unsure of what would happen if he spoke English and could actually communicate with the guards. I almost wonder if he’d convince them to let him out.
In this stage, the men feel an odd connection with the creature. He stares at them and even attempts communication. He almost whispers to them in an eerie unheard way. His whole room has an unsettling aura about it that can be felt as soon as I step into it. It’s almost like a strange unseen force is present.
Leonard seems to have developed emotions in this phase. In the initial stages his anger and violence seemed to come only from a necessity of food. But in this stage, he seems to be angry for the sake of being angry. He seems violent in a way that has nothing to do with food. This may be a bit of a stretch, but he seems able to feel things beyond anger. There are times when I can almost sense sadness or longing in him. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with the subject and we’ve developed a type of connection. Even though we’ve never spoken with direct words, I feel like we’ve communicated."
The document trailed on with more of the Colonel’s ramblings about how he and Leonard bonded.
"I’ve concluded there are three stages to the infection. I’ve documented our subject’s progression like this:
Feeding Stage: Very minimal brain functionality coupled with an overdeveloped sense of feeding and violence.
Communication Stage: Higher brain functioning and ability to communicate basic words. Evolved state of aggression and feeding. This stage is ideal for the consumption of prey. Use of basic strategy and tactics.
Highly Advanced Stage: Huge jump in brain function beyond normal human levels. Creation and understanding of complex ideas. Interested in organization, building, and large scale projects. Attempts unnatural connections with those around him. Bent on mass destruction."
Brady shuttered to think of how they forced Leonard to advance in stages. In another report, all guards stationed to protect Leonard reported migraines. Later on in the reports, they successfully extracted the specific chemical compound that caused the zombification (called the Re-Animator in the notes). Upon deeper investigation Brady found the location of the subject inside the facility. The words emanating from the computer screen beckoned him.
∙ • ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙
He researched more on how to close the outer doors, until he was positive he’d figured them out. Just before he enabled the commands to seal the base, he informed the Captain he would need to change something manually before being able to shut the external doors. The Captain carelessly agreed to let him go. The Captain’s attention focused on several packages of non-perishable meals his troops discovered and half a bottle of rum. Brady quickly stepped out of the Captain’s presence and back into the hallway he remembered would lead him to a stairwell.
Brady found the stairs leading down. The loneliness he felt on the outside could not compare to what he now experienced. The barren concrete pressed in on him only increasing this feeling. Perhaps the thought that he could die in here and never be found gnawed at him. Deeper into the bowels he dared until he came across a door with the number 3 painted on it. The metal door opened like a dragon’s mouth and Brady’s eyes met only darkness. A rancid smell, coupled with thick black air, rolled out of the gaping entrance as if he opened the doors to Hell itself. No light shone within. This forced him to turn on the flashlight taped to his gun. A mild panic seized him as the column of light shot into the darkness and all but disappeared. It's bright beam could not penetrate the soupy air.
Courageously, Brady stepped into the smoky curls of death. He seemed like a knight of old being swallowed whole by a monstrous dragon. The smoke surrounded his face, stinging his eyes. The pain in his lungs forced his mind to reconsider the proposition of exploration. But his strong will overpowered his pain. As he progressed, he began to see evidence of a fire. That in and of itself wasn’t horrible until he considered the laboratories on this level. The threat of lethal chemical fumes entered his mind. He coughed, doubling over and found it easier to breathe if he stayed low to the ground.
Despite the dangers, Brady found it impossible to retreat now. His curiosity burned inside him to be so close to a possible subject and the original virus. Crawling on the floor through the debris of the fire while covering his face with a cloth, he came to a doorway to the left. Opening it, he found the first of a series of laboratories. As he continued down the hallway, he found several of the labs to be in decent and unpolluted shape. Going through these one by one would have been painstaking if it hadn’t been for the details in the Colonel's notes. Once Brady determined which lab he was currently in, he proceeded to discover the one mentioned in the reports. Luckily, it seemed the fire destroyed only the main parts of this level. The doors successfully protected the rooms and their contents.
Slipping inside, he found several of the vials he sought. The sides bore the word in bright magic marker: Re-Animator. Two dead technicians silently observed from vacant eyes as Brady took as many of the containers as he could find stuffing them into his pockets. With the task completed, he crawled again into the main hallway. Only a short journey down the musty corridor took him to the door 317. Brady paused considering the atrocities that happened here. Had he not known better, he would have considered it merely another average door leading to a mundane room. Reaching up, he found a small window but shining the light on it only produced Brady’s own reflection. Gathering his courage, he twisted and the handle, pushing the door back. A familiar darkness greeted him.
Using the flashlight, Brady located the two nearest corners of the room. The floor appeared to be vacant until he came to a strange reflection he didn’t recognize at first. As he neared, he discovered the reflection to be caused by a large piece of Plexiglas dividing the room in half. Brady stood finding the air much cleaner in this room. Quickly Brady scanned the edges of the glass with his light to make sure all four corners were intact. With the glass’s security verified, he started scanning the floor. Gnawed bones littered the space within. On the far end of the room sat a lone bed both worn and dirty.
About the time fear of Leonard’s escape seized him, B
rady’s light fell upon a hideous sight. It startled him so deeply he could not help but jump. When he collected himself, he lifted his gun and shone the light onto a terrifying face. Angrily it glared at him. With eyes that could have drilled through Brady’s skull, Leonard greeted him.
Brady focused his flashlight and now clearly saw the malnourished face. Its pupils shrank back in the scorching remembrance of light. The creature’s mouth opened and a slight hissing noise escaped. With the light now on the upper part of the Plexiglas, Brady could not help but notice the deep fingernail scratches lining the inside of the glass. Whole fingernails could be seen in some places stuck in the partition. Hunger obviously plagued the monster. Its skin literally dangled off his skeleton for lack of muscle. The zombie dragged himself to the Plexiglas silently bringing his gaunt hand up to the glass as a criminal would do with his family on the other side.
“Leonard?” Brady asked without moving towards the glass. The creature sadly moaned and expressed the most pitiful expression. It moved to the glass and proceeded to wipe its face against it in a line. As it did, the monster’s mouth left a revolting trail of bloody sludge behind it. With his neck fully extended to the right, the creature’s face retracted its red course smearing the bloody substance against his cheek. He continued this odd spectacle until both his cheeks were smeared in the disgusting substance.
Moved by the pitiful display, Brady could not keep the compassion from swelling up in his heart. Obvious it seemed to Brady that this creature clung to the brink. His sunken eyes peered out of their deep sockets like enchanting whispers. Brady suddenly became very aware of his heartbeat. Before he realized what was happening, he’d taken a step forward and felt a force against him pushing him forward. The room almost started to spin and Brady found it necessary to consciously remind himself of who and where he was. The strange presence mentioned in the notes snuck up like a villain upon the back of Brady’s mind while the zombie occupied its attention. As if someone were looking over his shoulder, Brady dreaded the unseen. With his head the creature motioned towards the door in the glass.
Sorrow: A Novel Written by Brian Wortley Page 4
