A growl coming from the other side of the bars made them stop, all of a sudden.
The young colored man stood up, imitated by Red, and he said, "We must go, Dad. I hope you'll feel better, the next time I come."
A new growl was emitted by the colossus who was standing behind the bars, his arms by his sides, watching them with a kind of voracious appetite, his mouth watering, drooling.
The young man turned around and walked toward the entrance of the room, followed by the girl.
Red stopped just an instant. She had seen a small reflection on one of Harry's cheeks.
Am I dreaming, or did I actually see a tear trickling down one of his cheeks? Or was it a drop of sweat?
She found the room rather warm, so it didn't seem impossible... She looked at him for a few seconds again, trying to see again the powerful, but also very human being who had taken part in her rescue. She would've loved to know him better, when he was still completely a human being…
"You come or you stay?"
The voice of Johnny, who was standing in the door frame with, behind him, the darkness of the nearby corridor, made her quit her thoughts. She looked at him, saying to herself, this one has already abandoned the idea of seeing his dad again.
Remaining silent she followed him outside, slowly closing the door behind her, not before glancing a last time at the massive silhouette which was standing, watching her.
She sighed, and then closed completely the door behind her.
***
Test
Cries, growls, and shrieks accompanied the whole path of the group, consisting in part of two armed security guards wearing black uniforms.
Rifles in the hand, they were following a man wearing something looking like a crossover between a silvery armor and an astronaut suit. Finally, there was the Professor Theodore Harding, walking behind the rest of the group. They arrived in front of a closed metallic door.
The man in armor looked at the cold smooth surface which reflected, distorted, his silhouette. He looked at his deformed face which was visible under the lifted visor, recognizing fear in his own gaze. His breath became heavier and he turned around, looking at the eye of the scientist.
The latter, seeming cold and concentrated, said, “Well, you know the terms of our agreement. You enter, you stay a few minutes inside, and after that, we free you. And then, thanks to the remission which will then be granted to you, you will be immediately a free man. Think about it.”
The man nodded and, swallowing hard, slowly closed his visor. He asked, his voice distorted by the metallic armor, “You’re sure this armor will protect me?”
“Probably,” Professor Theodore Harding answered, looking at him, boldfaced. “But after all, if it was without any danger, would the Council be so generous to you? Major dangers, great rewards.”
While watching him through the closed visor, the man stepped back, but he was quickly pushed closer to the closed door by the security guards who were standing behind him.
One of them entered a code on a little keyboard beside the door, and all of a sudden it slid up.
It was almost completely dark inside, with only one part of the cell illuminated by the dim light of the corridor. The man shivered as, pushed by four hands, he entered, hesitantly, the little cell. Nothing was clearly visible.
The guillotine-like door slid down and shut behind him, banging on the metallic floor and making him startle.
Outside, the finger of the guard who had closed the door pressed another button. This made a little monochrome TV screen switch on, showing the interior of the cell, which remained rather dark.
Professor Harding extracted a little microphone out of the side of the screen and said, “Please turn on the headlamp of your armor, we can’t see anything for the moment. The interior lighting of the cell has not been working for a long time.”
His right hand trembling, the man pressed a button on the side of his helmet.
A cone of light suddenly illuminated the whole cell, making the man wince because of its intensity.
The image on the screen, which was of bad quality and still dark, revealed the interior of the cell, with a table and a chair and, at the foot of it, a rolled carpet.
Professor Harding approached the screen and observed every detail. He frowned, grim-looking, and after many seconds, asked in the microphone, “Where is it? Do you see it?”
“N… no,” the man in the armor answered, his voice coming from a loudspeaker on the side of the screen.
On it the scientist and the guards watched the lonesome man turn around nervously, looking everywhere. His noisier and accelerating breath clearly suggested his anxiety. They heard it in his tone when he continued, “I don’t see it, there’s probably an error in your prisoner data. Let me out, please.”
“Sorry, but we’ve already verified. We’re sure it’s inside. When you find it…”
“Or when it finds me!” yelled the man, his breath becoming frenetic, as he continued to turn around.
Professor Harding was concentrated on what was happening on the screen.
He thought he saw a movement.
“There, I saw something moving!” yelled one of the guards, pointing to a part of the screen with an index finger, confirming the scientist’s first impression.
“Where?” shouted the man inside, the intensity of his voice becoming deafening as it exploded out of the speakers.
Harding observed too the thing which had begun to move but, not wanting to interact with the subject of the experience, he didn’t dare do anything else than say, “Fascinating…”
“What?” asked the man in armor, whose voice had attained a new peaking level in the high ranges, “What’s fascinating?”
A guard couldn’t avoid murmuring, “My God…”
Professor Harding smiled while he watched a very thin silhouette stand up behind the subject of the experimentation.
The latter turned around just at that moment, understanding too late.
What he and the others had thought to be a rolled carpet on the ground had been, in fact, a skeletal living dead, wearing an old bathrobe.
“Nooo!” yelled the man in armor, and he ran heavily toward the closed door, with his back to the thing, banging with his fists on the hard metallic surface.
These movements and noise clearly upset the zombie which responded with the roar of a wild beast. It walked slowly and clumsily toward the man, stopping behind him. It put its skeletal hand on one of the blade-covered shoulders of the frightened man, and pulling briskly, made him turn around.
“No, open up!” yelled the man, goggling at the view of the skull with empty orbits, the shadows inside of these seeming to watch him in an odd way.
The creature roared again while opening a gaping mouth, making the man, eyes wide while watching it, speechless and paralyzed by fear.
Outside, the guards and the Professor continued to observe the skeleton-like undead. The thing and the man were standing in front of each other. The nightmarish creature suddenly stopped roaring. It had its dirty old white bathrobe opened. In the opening could be seen its rib cage, sternum, pelvis, and bony arms and legs. Only a very thin layer of muscles covered its body parts.
The zombie threw its claw-like hands toward the metallic chest of the man's armor.
The scratching of the sharp fingertips of the phalanges on the metallic surface was phenomenal. Its shiny surface emitted screeching sounds but wasn’t pierced through.
Lowering his head and looking down toward his brisket through the visor of his helmet, the man sighed, surprised to be still alive. Much to his surprise, the creature seemed to react at this sigh by stopping its scratching and lowering its arms.
Its ugly mouth tightly shut, it became immobile, its empty orbits seeming to watch him again, in total silence. It moved its ugly, bony skull towards the man’s head, who watched it with a mix of horror and fascination.
“What does it want?” asked one of Harding's guards, who were
watching the scene with him.
Suddenly the creature threw its claw-like hands around the armored man’s arms and shook him brutally, making him cry out. Then it threw him briskly on the side, making him stagger while wailing again, thrown toward a nearby wall. Unbalanced, his back bounced hard against the concrete surface and he fell on the dirty ground. On his hands and knees, he was now in a crawling position.
“Gosh,” murmured the former guard, while watching the scene in awe.
The armored man’s face was sweating. The only view he could see through the increasingly fogged visor, was the concrete ground, and the emaciated feet of the creature which was standing over him. The man heard his own heavy deafening breath inside the helmet, while his stress steeply escalated. He had never felt claustrophobic until then, but now, everything was different. Still in a crawling position, he moved his right metal-gloved hand, seeing that it had fallen on something.
He turned his hand and discovered, half glued to its palm side by dried blood, the emptied-out skin of a rat. The animal had been butchered, and through the translucent skin illuminated by the lamp of his helmet, he could still guess the traces left by the vertebrae of the poor little thing's missing backbone.
Suddenly he was lifted and, as his knees and feet remained on the ground, he saw its dirty surface disappear downwards. The skin fell from his hand, and he realized that he was now facing, again, the ugly skull of the living dead.
The man shouted in fear, provoking the reaction of the creature which was half lifting him. It roared, opening a huge, gaping mouth showing ugly blood-tainted teeth, and threw its free hand around the lower part of the helmet.
His head hopefully protected inside, the man heard terrible metallic sounds. He was surprised when he felt the stainless-steel chinstrap moving. Completely frightened he shouted, feeling his chin seemingly being crushed on both sides by the enormous pressure of the thing’s fingers.
He heard shots and felt that he was released falling hard on the ground, his hands cushioning the impact with difficulty.
Many other shots reverberated between the walls and through his metallic helmet as he felt that he was dragged by his feet, while he continued to wail.
Finally he heard a big metallic sound and the shots ceased, as he felt that he was helped to stand up. It was difficult, he felt dizzy. He fell on his back, not without discerning the closed door of the cell passing by in the narrow point of view offered by his visor. He ended up lying on his back, watching vaguely, through his still-foggy visor, the dimly lit ceiling of the corridor. As he continued to breathe noisily, feeling his heart racing in his chest, he felt hands fidgeting on his visor.
Suddenly the visor was opened and fresh, delightful air entered inside the helmet. No more was his breathing the main sound he could hear now, and he swallowed, feeling his throat and lips completely dry. Feeling that he was trembling, he saw the smiling face of Professor Harding appear in his point of view, and he heard him tell him, “So you see that you survived the challenge… you’re now a free man!”
The scientist and the guards were kneeling around the still-prone man who, remaining inside the armor, continued trembling.
One of the men kneeling near him, who was the nearest, sniffed and, grimacing, said, “My God, what’s that odor? Jeez, he’s peed inside the protective suit, or something?”
Harding shrugged while looking at him and then lowering his head, smiled at the prone man.
They helped the man to get on his feet and then accompanied him toward the exit of the concrete corridor.
As the still armored man, still shaken, walked with difficulty, blissfully supported by them, they heard shouts, roars and growls coming from inside the dozens of cells around them. Some of the metallic doors of those cells were hit from the inside, bumps forming on their outside surface.
The group reached the end of the corridor and after passing through a heavy metallic door, they slammed it behind them. They then found themselves inside a huge metallic hangar. It enclosed completely an inner concrete structure. It seemed able to avoid any escape of its surprisingly powerful "guests", but it was unable to diminish completely the bestial sounds they emitted.
Sighing while continuing to tremble, the man in armor, still supported, followed the others toward the last door.
The door leading to his deserved freedom.
***
Professor Harding said, biting his lips, “Well, our trial of a protective armor to protect against zombies isn’t… hmmm… a real success.”
“Really fascinating,” he added, continuing his monologue while he was looking at the now empty armor that he and two aids had laid down on a big table. They looked at the helmet’s almost crushed chin-cup, and at the impressive claw marks on the iron chest, the iron-clad arms having their metallic surfaces distorted.
“Don’t you find that impressive?” continued Harding, addressing the two men who seemed as fascinated by the scene as him. “Despite the fact that this living dead has almost no muscle remaining on its bones, it's able to distort metals. The effect of the Virus of the Plague on human muscles will always be mind-boggling, for me… Imagine how much the living dead would be ever more dangerous, if their brains hadn’t been damaged. It makes their movements badly synchronized and inefficient. We're fortunate that it's not the case, or they would be much faster… and actually invincible!”
The two men nodded silently, clearly impressed and thanking God that they were, indeed, so fortunate.
***
Arrival
“I’m arriving!” shouted Elmer Hoffnung, full of joy, while after another day and night of driving, he saw it.
Not very far away, the upper part of the Community’s dome was visible, its base hidden by the trees of the surrounding woodlands.
He felt excited, after having driven the big truck during the last few years. Fighting to find some fuel, sometimes repairing the motor of the old vehicle, luckily without being surprised by hungry zombies. His heart beating with emotion, he drove on a road which led to a nearby wood and night falling, he switched on his headlights while entering it.
Hundreds of red spots appeared everywhere around him, in the bushes, behind the trees. They were all around him.
He felt oppressed. “No, not them, not when I’m arriving!”
He bit his lip and he jammed the gas pedal, just as he passed by awkward-walking silhouettes.
***
Johnny Jackson was on duty on the ramparts surrounding the Community's dome, and was pissed off after having seen his father. Bo, on duty too, was talking with him, while surveying the surrounding area out of the corners of his eyes.
“He's beginning to forget things, Bo, and there’s not only that…”
“What else?” asked the muscular blond man.
“His skin is becoming gray, and his eyes… you should see those reddish, glowing eyes, when he’s watching you in the dark!”
“I heard that Harding’s treatment was a half success…”
“Half success, yes,” yelled Johnny, interrupting him. “His treatment slows down the process of transformation, but it doesn’t stop it… my father is his guinea pig, and he will slowly, but surely, become one of them, one of those fucking zombies!”
“Strange…”
“Strange? What do you mean?” shouted Johnny, visibly outraged. A few dozen meters away, he saw two other guards who glared at him, apparently disturbed by his shouting.
“Sorry, Johnny, I was talking about something else.”
“What else?”
“I thought I saw a light in the wood… yes!”
Bo pointed an index finger toward a group of trees, a few hundred yards away, and his black colleague saw then, like him, two highlights. Bo reached down and looked through binoculars around his neck.
“A car, you think?” asked Johnny, happy to forget the dull subject of their earlier conversation.
“A van or a big truck, I think.”
"A truck?" said
Johnny, a big smile appearing on his face. In his turn he took the binoculars without removing the strap from his friend's neck, pulling him nearer to him.
"Hey!" yelled Bo as the pull of the black teen almost made him fall. Stabilizing himself, he took a bothered look at the concrete ground below, glad to remain standing on the wall walk surrounding the dome.
"Sorry," answered Johnny while smiling and observing the big truck pulling a trailer, rolling faster now toward the Community. Continuing to look with the binoculars, he asked, "Perhaps the driver is bringing some food with him? Something other than the never-depleting salads and tomatoes which are rammed down our throats?"
Johnny licked his lips and continued, "Imagine if he or she brings some chocolate, for example?"
"You're making me dream," Bo murmured, daydreaming.
"What the..." the thin black guy yelled, continuing to observe with the binoculars. He had seen a bunch of zombies running as fast as their clumsy movements permitted them, behind the truck. He very well knew that they always had the instinct to try to catch any running object, like mad dogs.
The vehicle was accelerating while at the same time hundreds and hundreds of living dead were appearing everywhere. Opening gaping mouths, many of them were grabbing onto the vehicle when it passed by. Some even tried to restrain the moving mass with their skinny, bony arms.
***
Elmer was stressed more than ever as he was driving toward the huge wall circling the Community's dome, banging the dashboard. The fuel gauge was near zero, and the female synthesized voice of the on-board computer echoed once again, "The tank is empty, you must refill!"
"Where can I refill, whore?" yelled the fat guy, sweat trickling down his forehead. The now shut off motor permitted him to hear, distinctly, coming from around him, the roars and growls of the avid flesh eaters.
Biting the bullet, he realized, while driving the massive and now silent vehicle, that the truck was beginning to roll downhill.
Hungry Series: Tomes 1 & 2 Page 10
