“Well, it turns out it’s happened a few more times since then.”
“What?” I asked.
“Things have been getting weirder and weirder. The man that you saved last week went missing from the hospital early this morning. The most we can piece together is he attacked several orderlies and ran off. We’ve searched high and low but haven’t got any leads on his whereabouts.”
“And you want me to find him?”
“Actually, I wanted your insight for something else.” He hesitated for a moment before continuing. “These incidents are happening more and more often. People are getting attacked and, more often than not, bitten. One person even succumbed to his injuries and his body went missing from the morgue. We looked at the security footage, but there wasn’t anything useful. You see how weird this is?”
David was obviously at a loss. He was an experienced cop, but his frustration was understandable given the circumstances.
“I’ll certainly do whatever I can to help.”
“I’d really appreciate it, Dana.”
I smiled. David knew there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for him. And I mean that. Anything.
“Did you want me to meet you at the station after work?” I asked.
“I know you can’t keep missing work on my behalf, so whenever you’re able to get away at the end of the day would be fine.”
“So what was your plan?”
“I was hoping to go back to a previous crime scene and backtrack from there. I was wondering if you could try and pick up the trail of the attacker?”
“I can certainly try, but I didn’t exactly get a good scent.” I might have heightened senses in cat-mode, but some things you just didn’t notice. Unless the person had a unique smell or I was specifically trying to track someone, I didn’t generally pay attention to it. Having acute senses overloaded the brain so you learned to tune out the information you didn’t need.
“If that doesn’t work, then maybe we can try the other locations?” he asked.
“Sure. I’ll try to be over right after work.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“You owe me.” I’m pretty sure he felt my smile through the phone line.
“I always do.” David laughed before he hung up.
I tried my best to concentrate on work the rest of the day, but I couldn’t help my mind wandering. If David was confused over all of this, then understandably so was I. I only hoped I could help him.
As Nightcat, I met David in his office shortly after 5:30 and we went over all the evidence so far. The morning’s phone call summarized it, but now he gave me the gritty details.
After the short briefing we drove to the place where the assault occurred. I attempted to let my senses guide me so I sniffed the air more than usual.
“Getting anything?” David asked.
I shook my head. “Not really. It’s pretty dank around here so it’s hard for anything else to come through. That and I don’t exactly know what I’m looking for.”
He came over and patted me on the shoulder. “Regardless, I’m still glad you came.”
“You can thank me after I’ve found whatever it is we’re looking for.” I smiled, then went back to concentrating on the task at hand. I still didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary so I tried doing a visual inspection. As I walked further down the alley, I noticed a dishevelled man hunkered over by a dumpster, likely a homeless person trying to find something to eat.
“Excuse me,” I asked as I gently tapped him on the shoulder. As soon as I made physical contact, I knew something was horribly wrong. My sixth sense reiterated that fact.
The man slowly turned around, his smile filled with rotting teeth. His blank eyes stared right through me. I stepped back as he lumbered forward.
“Nightcat?” David whispered.
I didn’t dare say a thing. And I didn’t need to. Once David got a good look at this “thing” he knew something was wrong.
I continued to back step, staring at the monstrosity before me.
His gray saggy flesh hung loosely from the bones beneath. The eyes were a milky white, and it made me wonder how much he was able to discern. As he crept forward, the panic rose in my chest. This being was vaguely human, but not quite. Almost like a poorly sculpted wax figure melting in a tanning bed.
David and I found ourselves up against the wall when several figures in the shadows started slinking forward. Something told me they were much the same physically as the first creature.
“David?” I squeaked.
No answer.
I turned my head and saw his eyes staring forward in disbelief.
“David!” I tried to bring him out of it.
“Sorry, I . . . I don’t know what to do, honestly.”
“And I’m supposed to?”
No sooner did I finish my sentence than one of the monstrosities jumped at me. As I struggled with my attacker, the rest of the horde grew closer. David shot a few of them in non-vital areas, but they kept coming.
It baffled me how something so lanky and seemingly frail could be so strong. I held its hands away from me, but it strained its neck and got closer to my face as it started snapping like a rabid dog.
Before David uttered an expletive I heard the tell-tale sign of his gun clicking, indicating he was out of bullets. In that split second when I took my eyes off my attacker, the creature launched itself forward and took a chunk out of my neck with its teeth.
I immediately clutched my neck, trying to stop the bleeding.
“Come on, let’s go!” David held out his hand and I accepted. Before I made it to my feet, David levelled one of the monsters with the butt of his pistol. Its skin ripped right along the cheekbone, but it didn’t bleed.
David held my hand as we ran back to the vehicle. I took a quick glance behind and confirmed my worst fear: they were following us and the ones in better shape were actually gaining on us.
David opened the driver’s side door, pushed me into the car and jumped in after me. He slammed the door shut and hit the automatic locks as he started the engine. The freak show was attempting to surround the car. David slammed his foot down on the gas pedal so hard I thought his foot would go right through the firewall.
Several of the creatures got run over in the process, but when I looked in the side mirror, it didn’t seem to deter them at all. Even though some of them were legless, they crawled forward in a last ditch effort to chase us.
“You okay?” David asked, his voice full of concern.
“I’m not sure,” I said through gritted teeth.
I wasn’t a stranger to pain, but this was different than anything I’d ever felt before, and the wound wasn’t healing as fast as it should have been.
“Let me see.” David took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at the gaping hole in my neck. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
“No, they won’t be able to do anything,” I said in a voice that barely sounded like my own.
“Dana, this is serious!”
“You think I don’t know that? Phone Raphael. Get me to the lab.”
“Dana, no. There’s no way . . .”
“Just do it!” I demanded with more force than intended.
“You’d better know what you’re doing.” David made the call.
I closed my eyes for the remainder of the ride and concentrated on healing.
For whatever good it would do me.
Raphael met us at the lab and gave me a quick go-over.
“It appears you have seen better days, Ms. Harker.” Raphael smirked that annoying smirk of his. Leave it to him to be his irritating urbane self during something like this.
“Are you going to help me, or mock me?” I said quietly.
“I never mock, Ms. Harker,” Raphael said deadpan. “Please, come with me.”
As I followed Raphael deeper into the lab, I couldn’t help but be reminded how little had changed since I forcibly underwent the transformation that
turned me into Nightcat. Before the transformation I was intimidated by Raphael’s bat-like seven-and-a-half-foot, four-hundred-fifty-pound frame. I’ve since proven to be capable of at least bringing Raphael to a standstill which granted me some amount of respect from him. Raphael escorted me to one of the lab’s many observation rooms. Dr. Bertram was at his usual station in front of a giant monitor, his fingers madly typing away on the keyboard beneath.
He gave me one look and was in sheer shock. “Might I ask what happened?” He showed me to the bed in the middle of the room.
It took every ounce of strength I had to hop up on the table. I removed my hand from the wound, which still had not healed.
“Let me get a sample.” He grabbed a Q-Tip and swabbed the area.
David stood by my side and slightly squeezed my hand.
It was a good thing I insisted on coming to the lab instead of the hospital. My healing ability would normally take care of any wounds I sustained, but this wasn’t like anything I ever experienced.
“This doesn’t look good,” the doctor said as he pushed his glasses further up on his nose and scrutinized the readings on the monitor.
“What’s wrong?” David asked.
“Whatever was in the saliva of the thing that bit you is now causing the area to become necrotic and delaying your ability to heal. I’m sure it will eventually heal itself, but by then it might be too late.”
I flopped back onto the bed in utter defeat.
Raphael asked David, “Might I inquire the circumstances that brought this on?”
Normally David wouldn’t give in to one of Raphael’s requests, but this was the exception and he recounted the events of the past several days.
“What were the defining physical characteristics of this fiend?” Raphael asked, pressing for more details.
“Why can’t you forgo the formality and just ask me what he looked like?” I snapped.
“I believe I just did.”
I closed my eyes and tried to bring up a mental picture of my attacker.
“His eyes were milky white. Not like he had cataracts, but like he was blind,” I said. “He was really thin, not an ounce of fat on him. His skin was hanging off his bones. That’s all I remember.”
“That almost sounds like . . .” the professor started until Raphael, with a quick gesture, instructed him not to pursue the issue.
“Sounds like what?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted the answer.
“It is nothing.” Raphael waved it off, but I still wasn’t convinced.
“It’s not ‘nothing!’” David said as he hit Raphael in the chest. He likely would have shoved him into the wall if Raphael didn’t outweigh him twofold and wasn’t a good foot and a half taller.
“Detective, please,” Raphael said as he gently pushed David out of the way. When you had that kind of physical presence, you could pretty much get away with anything.
“Answer me, Raphael,” David said through gritted teeth.
Dr. Bertram looked up at Raphael, who gave him a slight nod.
“During the early trials for the procedure, various pharmaceutical companies were interested in our findings, despite not being fully tested at the time,” Bertram explained. “One of the first things we set out to do was create a healing factor in the test subjects. There was an anomaly in one of them and although we determined the root cause, it was too late.”
“More test subjects? How many others have you experimented on?” I demanded.
“‘Test subjects’ do not automatically imply they were human,” Raphael said.
“They wouldn’t be anymore.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“If you must know, Ms. Harker, they were lab mice.” Raphael seemed to be getting increasingly frustrated with me.
Bertram continued. “Instead of a healing factor, one mouse had the opposite happen. In layman’s terms, it started decaying from the outside in.”
“Or to put it simply, you had a zombie mouse,” I offered.
As soon as I made the connection, my mind went on a wild tangent. Zombies were supposed to be fictitious, but the events happening around me were very real.
“So now what?” I asked Raphael. “I sit here and slowly rot to death?”
“Your healing factor has dealt with far worse situations.”
“So I’m supposed to trust that the people that contributed to giving me a healing factor didn’t screw that up, too?”
“Ms. Harker,” Raphael said gently. He was obviously trying to calm me down. “The faulty trial happened long ago. It has since been rectified and tested.”
“On who?”
“You and I.”
If I had any more energy, I would have continued the verbal war with him.
“If it’s any consolation, you’re healing ability is at least keeping the degeneration at bay,” the doctor said as he read the results off the monitor. “I’ll do another test in a half hour and see if your condition improves.”
“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?” I said.
“What were you planning on accomplishing while incapacitated? Grocery shopping?” Raphael said.
I growled a low growl that was almost out of the range of human hearing, but I knew it would register on Raphael’s bat-like ears.
“That is one option,” Dr. Bertram piped up. Even Raphael looked on, so he obviously had no idea what it would be. “I can take a sample of your blood now and another after you heal. By looking at the changes in the antibodies we should know more about how to cure this virus.”
“So once again you want me to be the guinea pig?” I couldn’t say I liked where this was going.
“You will, no doubt, heal from this, but unless we can analyze it, other people are at risk,” the doctor said.
“Fine, do what you need to.” It had to be done.
“There is one caveat, however,” the doctor said, more muttering to himself than anyone in particular.
“What?”
“It would be impossible to guess how long your healing factor would take to absolve you of this infliction, and in the meantime, many more people could be infected.”
“If time is of the essence, then perhaps you could quickly explain your solution,” Raphael said.
“The healing factor is largely dependent on adrenaline.”
“So? Tell me something I don’t know,” I said.
“I could inject you with epinephrine to increase your heart rate and jump-start the healing process.”
“I’m sensing a ‘but’ coming.”
“It is not without risks. Additional side effects include anxiety, headache and hypertension, to name a few. I would also have to estimate the amount necessary to give to you. Your healing factor is still largely undocumented so your body’s response is difficult to hypothesize.”
“If you had stayed in the lab after your transformation, perhaps we would have a better idea on your capabilities,” Raphael said.
I uncharacteristically ignored him and looked over at David.
“I don’t like any of this,” he said with a grimace.
“Neither do I, but I’ve been through worse. I’m sure my healing ability can handle it,” I said with feigned optimism. I took a moment before turning to Bertram. “Let’s do it before I change my mind.”
I really wasn’t looking forward to this. Oddly enough, even though a lot was at stake, I was more worried about the needles. Ever since the procedure that turned me into Nightcat, I’ve been extremely fearful of them, likely due to Raphael ramming an elephant-sized needle into my midsection. I’ve never forgiven him for that.
David held my hand while Dr. Bertram drew blood. Unfortunately, I couldn’t squeeze David’s hand as much as I wanted to because I would have crushed it. I couldn’t help but watch Bertram prep the needle with the serum, but looked away just before he injected me. It didn’t take long before the burning sensation of the healing process intensified. At least it was working.
Several i
ntense minutes passed, my pumping heart overtaking my immediate thoughts. I was sure it would jump right out of my chest and across the room.
My grip on David’s hand increased until he winced. I abruptly let go of him and sank my claws into the side of the bedframe. I heard the metal complaining, but I didn’t care. Better the examining table than David.
I tried my best to remain calm, but it was a near impossible feat. I writhed around on the bed, growling and groaning in pain.
Eventually the pain did subside, slowly. I was sweating so profusely that even my fur couldn’t absorb it all. Once the adrenaline wore off, I was chilly, like I was getting over a bad flu. As my body relaxed, it ached from being so tense.
Dr. Bertram looked at my neck to assess the outcome.
“It appears to be healing,” he said as he drew another vial of blood and compared it to the earlier sample.
“What are your findings, Doctor?” Raphael asked, barely giving him enough time to make any conclusions.
“We already knew the cause of the anomaly, so it should be fairly straightforward to find the antibody responsible for eradicating it.” Bertram studied the monitors. After a few minutes of silence, Bertram finally made the diagnosis known. “The good news is we can synthesize a cure. The bad news is not everyone will respond to it.”
“Please elaborate,” Raphael said.
“If a person is in an advanced state of decomposition, the cure will be useless.”
“So what do we do with the badly-infected people?” I asked.
“In order to prevent the spread of the virus, they must be destroyed.” Bertram said this without any emotion in his voice.
“So they need to be killed. Great,” I muttered. “And what of the cure?”
“The best method would be to deliver it using the city’s water supply. That way the rest of the population will gain immunity.”
“And why do we need to kill the infected people, again?” I asked. “If everyone will be immune to it, then why do we need to kill them?”
“Do you wish more innocent blood to be shed, Ms. Harker?” Raphael asked.
“You know I can’t kill them,” I shot back. “You might not have any problems killing people, but I do.”
“What will happen to the infected if they’re left alone?” David said.
Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology Page 15
