“Hold still, Silly!” the Asphyxiated man said with the same playful child-like voice Alex heard on the phone, its speech disturbing and almost innocent in tone. The Asphyxiated took a few steps back and watched haughtily as the woman struggled; the handcuffs scraping and clunking on the metal rails as it snapped at him rabidly. He gasped with a few deep and pointless breaths, swiftly reaching for his belt and pulling a rusted knife from it slowly and deliberately. The woman continued to desperately snap at the Asphyxiated as he lightly ran the blade across her face. He watched as it bit the knife, her teeth instantly shattering and her mouth bleeding as he tormented her in a malevolent and nauseating manner. Alex shut her eyes tight and turned her head away as he slowly pushed the blade under her ribcage, tearing through her skin little by little as blood instantly flooded her skin and poured to the ground.
Alex opened an eye as the Asphyxiated plunged his hand deep into her chest, gasping uncontrollably in fright. Suddenly, he stopped, turning his head towards her and Alex’s heart immediately dropped into her stomach. Shaking in fear; she closed her eyes as the man pulled his hand from the cadaver’s chest, wiping it down his leg as he wandered towards the freezer compartments. As the cadaver snapped at the air, the Asphyxiated slowly looked over the metal doors, examining them blindly before instantly hovering his stare over her. As she trembled with apprehension and fear, she stared back at the vulgar creature through the opening with growing dread. He hovered for a few moments, suddenly turning his head towards the woman on the table as it struggled noisily. He clawed at his wrapped head deeply frustrated, pulling at the plastic covering as blood escaped down his chest, huffing and gasping as she watched with a shivering gaze.
Alex held her breath and mumbled a prayer; the creature returning his gaze towards her; his dying chest and unstable breaths almost silenced by the cadaver’s aimless struggling behind him.
Suddenly, he turned away and Alex clutched her mouth gravely, hoping and begging for him to walk away, but he paused, turning towards her and slowly clasping the compartments handle. Alex suddenly gasped as the door was thrown open, the Asphyxiated staring upon her almost as surprised as she was; suddenly taking a scattering of steps back, pulling at his wrapped face clearly mystified.
He slowly tilted his head and his arms dropped to his sides, standing quietly and motionless as she stared upon him in fear.
“Why are you hiding in there?!” The Asphyxiated asked playfully with a child’s voice. Alex couldn’t speak; her voice was almost stolen, as if fear had callously taken it from her. She merely glared back at the creature without a single word, her heart pounding in her chest with escalating anxiety.
Suddenly, the man reached into his pocket and grumbled before checking his other pockets erratically. He eventually sighed and pulled something out. “Would you like some candy?” it said opening his dirty blood covered palm unveiling a mouldy rotten sweet, tacky in gore and far from appealing. Alex wearily shook her head, impassively staring at the creature as it threw the sweet to the ground. Clumsily, he turned and approached the thrashing cadaver on the table. He pulled a knife from his belt and sunk its blade coldly into its head and instantly the cadaver became still. He turned and strolled towards Alex steadily, staring at her inquisitively and obviously fascinated. She watched him as he stood before her, his somewhat elegant body had her almost mesmerized, its haunting absent stare upon her gravely unsettling.
“Do you want to play with me?” he said ecstatically to her, walking away and grasping the door handle to the Mortuary excited and mischievous. “Let’s play hide and seek!” he continued insanely.
“The loser though, will have to be the patient on there!” he said aroused and overly enthusiastic, pointing towards the table that the carcass silently bled upon.
Suddenly, the Asphyxiated pulled open the door and dragged itself out of the room as the door shut behind it with a slam. As a cold chilling silence fell upon the morgue, Alex hastily climbed from the compartment and rubbed her arms frantically. She stood looking at the exit beleaguered and distraught, her mind slowly grasping at the threads of what just happened and yet; she could not even piece together a single thought.
Alex turned and approached the woman who lay bleeding on the table; her cuffed wrists haemorrhaging and her head weeping blood pitilessly. Her Police uniform was ripped and damaged with dried encrusted crimson, soaked to the skin in some areas, with dried blood in others. Her tight horror-struck face was streaked in tears and dirt; her gums bled, and her black eyes crawled as if they were alive on the surface.
Alex slowly peeled open its leather jacket and pulled out the woman’s identification wallet, opening it glumly revealing a few photographs and her badge. Her name was Amber Jennings, twenty-four and only signed up with the Blackwater Police Department just a few months prior. Alex looked over the small collection of photos with deep heartache as Amber’s face smiled back at her with her loved ones, precious living moments immortalized forever. Strangely, compared to the terror carved face that lay before her, she was a mere shadow of her former self with only a few physical traits left that Alex could see of. She searched through the wallet’s other compartments as the woman slowly bled to the ground, silent and haunted, but curiously peaceful as if were put out of her misery and pain.
Alex also found a small pocket log-book which she took out and read to herself quietly.
Amber Jennings Log: Police Precinct
My name is Amber Jennings; I have been an Officer of the B.W.P.D for six months now. The past few days have been crazy, shocking and nightmarish. We have been told all paperwork has been suspended, but I feel the need to write what is going on down, so someday, someone might read it.
None of us have slept for nearly two days as the city of Blackwater falls to this Legacy Virus, Plague or whatever the Hell it is. The few of us that are left are sealed within the safety of the main Police Precinct on the East grid. It’s not ideal; I cannot see things improving and with all hope gradually disappearing, what hope do we have? We’ve shut all the shutters on the ground floor and basement; they run from a separate backup supply, so we should be safe from the infected, even if they turn off the city grid. We just have to wait to be rescued.
Update: It’s been several hours since Officer Ryan was bitten. He’s completely lost all mobility functions; he’s delirious and paranoid. The other surviving officers have moved him to the Evidence Room and basically left him to die. When did we as a human race become so uncaring and ruthless towards each other? Detective Patterson assured us everything is going to be okay, but there’s something strange about him I can’t put my finger on; he disappears at night when he thinks we are sleeping.
Update: I can’t sleep! Day three without sleep! It doesn’t matter where I try to get my head down, all I can hear are the cries and screams in the city. I sat watching from the top-floor window today as a tanker down the street crashed and burned. I watched the driver run down the road on fire as the infected leapt on him. I prayed that the fire killed him first.
Update: We found the body of Officer Sisco this morning, bound and tied, with no signs of infection and a single bullet wound to the head. None of us can believe it, well not at first at least. It can only mean one of two things. Someone has found their way in, which is possible for an uninfected.
Maybe a looter or one of the hundreds of rouge citizens corrupted and too tempted by the lack of law in the city. Alternatively, it could be the second option; one of our own did it. We performed a search of the Precinct, but found nobody. It is definitely one of us!
Update: I watched from my window this morning; the sky is red like the world is stuck in the phase of dawn, and the city is dark. It’s 9:22am and yet; the city is shrouded in shadows. We have been watching the news reports outside the city, and saving them to the hard-drive in the S.W.A.T
Operations Office on the second floor. The username is NEXUS, and the password is 11041976. The reports from outside the city are very misleading,
they have no idea. I just hope we are rescued soon.
Update: I followed Detective Patterson on CCTV when he thought we were asleep. He goes into the basement holding areas where there is no CCTV coverage; I wonder what he does down there. A few of us think he might have hidden a personal supply of food and water hidden; the other officers are going down there to investigate in the morning. We are starving and haven’t eaten for days; we are hoping our hunches are right.
Update: There are only a few of us left now, after our investigation into the basement lead to hostile fight in which Patterson shot dead three officers before turning the gun on himself. We did not find food or water. We found Officer Shawna Davies tied, naked and bound in the main generator room.
We all thought she was lost in the city somewhere along with the other hundreds of our fellow officers; she had been brutally raped by Patterson daily with horrendous wounds and suffered over exposure to the heat down there. Shawna died not long after we found her, she was a good friend, and we went to the same Academy together. What the Hell have we become?
Update: I cried myself to sleep last night; at least I think I did. I looked out of the window into the dark streets, and the city was silent. I had never heard the city so quiet before, and it was creepy and unsettling. I watched the fires burning far away, and I couldn’t escape the feeling that this was the end of it, in one way or another. Officer Rhodes came back from the food run today alone, officers Gresham and Turner were killed, but he had food, which had in itself become more important. He had a bandaged a wound on his arm; it wasn’t a bite, but we will watch his health just in case…
There are only four of us now.
Update: Rhodes’s bit me this morning when we tried to give him Morphine for his rapidly degenerating condition. I’m really scared; I have never been so scared in my entire life. He was not a zombie; he was just thrashing out, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m infected now. The other officers will not even come near me.
Update: I can feel the blood running through my body; it is so painful; it feels like my veins are being shredded and scratched. My mouth has a disgusting meat like taste that I can’t get rid of and my sight has gone strange. Everything is blurry and undefined, yet my fellow officers appear to be almost glowing, and I can smell their body odour from across the room. What is happening to me?
There are no more logs.
Alex frowned in despondency as she put the log-book in her rucksack, glaring down at Amber’s petrified and empty face with great sorrow. Amber did not deserve what happened to her; nobody did, however, there was something about Amber that made her more of a victim than the others.
Despite her obvious inexperience, she was definitely a good decent and person, clearly an exceptional Police Officer. Alex ran her hand over Amber’s silent forehead, almost shedding a tear for a friend that she never met. Amber was obviously dealt a cold hand of death, deeply personalized through her log-book, which sadly, Alex was beginning to regret ever reading. Alex walked away from Amber’s corpse and opened the Mortuary door, quietly peering around the frame into the steam flooded corridor. The empty silence was almost deafening, made worse by the fact that Alex knew there was someone, or something, roaming this precinct. She reached for the shutter switch and turned, flicking it and activating the window’s steel shutters; sadly watching Amber’s body disappear into the darkness as she lowered her head respectfully, closing the door behind her.
The steam danced around her body elegantly as she cut through the scalding mist, making her way towards the stairwell. She clasped the wet door handle and turned her head slightly, listening to the deathly silence all around her. Eventually, she turned the handle with a clunk of metal, opening the door slowly. Suddenly, a cold draft hit her from the basement, sending the steam rapidly retreating back into the corridor; her wet skin instantly chilling in the icy breeze. She stood watching as the haze escaped down the concrete stairs, flowing like water from step to step, vanishing into the darkness beneath. Alex grabbed the railing cautiously, practically blind as she made her way to the first floor; its door hanging over the shadows and hiding whatever pain and demonic horrors it had to offer behind it. Suddenly, the cell phone went off in Alex’s pocket, startling her with a jump as the eerie ring tone broke the chilly and empty silence. Calmly, she pulled the phone from her pocket and accepted the incoming call, holding it to her ear cautiously as her increasingly restless eyes stuttered and blinked.
“Where are you, Silly?” the mischievous voice said at the other end. Alex scorned and looked down the dark concrete stairs from where she came, paranoiac and distressed as she tried to get a bearing on her whereabouts. As the Asphyxiated giggled excitedly, Alex only frowned angrily, the child’s voice chuckling joyfully. “Hello… Alex?” it continued freakily and undeterred by her silence.
“I’m in the basement, Freak!” she snapped as she trembled with both mounting fear and anger.
Suddenly, a long silence settled between the two as Alex made her way imperceptibly towards the door into the first floor. Unexpectedly, the voice chirped up and Alex froze where she stood, her hand clasping the cold door handle in fright.
“So that’s not you I’m looking at on the stairs!” he said insanely. Alex’s heart suddenly skipped a beat, her anger turning into absolute paranoid fear. Her eyes were streaming as she walked slowly and carefully towards the barrier that overlooked the steps that vanished beneath her, seeing nothing but the reticent and endless darkness.
Suddenly, it dawned upon her, and she moved to the additional set that led up to the second floor.
Cautiously, she peered up to the balcony above, but that too revealed nothing but an illusory blackness. She calmly put her foot on the first step and waited; the man’s struggling and intermittent breaths on the phone taunting her like a heartbeat.
“Warmer…” the voice giggled arbitrarily on the other end as Alex slowly stepped up the stone stairs.
She looked up again towards the second floor, the ceiling high above covered in rusted cages and a mist that hovered like a blanket of storm clouds. “Warmer… warmer…” the voice on the phone said with alarming arousal, its muffled tone echoing throughout the cheerless stairwell.
As she came to a corner on the stairs, she backed up cautiously against the wall, shutting her eyes in fear and an eerie intuition. “You are red hot, Alex. Look around the corner… you’re almost there, child!” the voice cried with gruesome joy.
“I am here! Look around the corner!”
Instantly, she turned the corner but there was nothing there. The second floor entrance was barred with iron shutters; the stairwell seemed to be empty. Alex backed up against the wall and steadily put the phone to her ear, the giggling creature on the other end almost rapturous with joy.
Suddenly, the insane laughing stopped and the line went dead, leaving the stairwell silent and unnerving.
Alex looked at the phone for a few moments, insanely traumatized and besieged, the frosty silence chilling her skin as it slowly cast down around her. She could not think; her mind somewhat forlorn within her own paranoia as the Asphyxiated toyed with her. She ran her thumb over the phones cracked screen, wiping the dirt from it and revealing nothing but a mixed-up screen. Suddenly, she heard a dripping noise and steadily looked at the ground as a few specs of blood appeared at her feet. As her heart plunged into her stomach, she looked up at the ceiling and again, saw nothing, not even a corpse or a possible source for the blood. Alex grasped her head in confusion, stumbling down the steps defeated and confused, heading back to the door to the first floor. Alex entered the first floor and halted, looking over the hallway with a paranoid glare. The door slowly closed behind her as the Asphyxiated leisurely crept past and vanished down into the stairwell behind her, its drunken frame swaying and quailing as it secretly slipped away.
The first floor was in much disarray, filing cabinets and tables obstructed the hall; the wooden floor boards were saturated and creaked noisily under
foot. The carved stone walls arched into the ceiling all the way down to the end; and the tall windows flashed with the red and blue lights from outside. Vending machines stood wrecked and ransacked, all the food and snacks missing as the floor glimmered and sparkled, the money that was scattered, now worthless and ignored. The reception desk sat empty, strewn with files and paper, heavy cardboard boxes and the notice board behind it hung with a slant as a giant pot plant quivered in the cold air. Alex gazed over the hall as her face flashed from red to blue, her black glass like eyes sparkling in the surreal light. She slowly wandered further through the mess, taking in the gothic art and flawless stone architecture with awe. The arches were covered with cherubs and angels, all meticulously carved, reaching out and playing with each other; gazing over the hallway with empty eyes and joyous expressions. Suddenly, Alex’s attention was drawn to a painting. It was, like every other, painted in a gothic style and it looked like her home on the island – a tall, heavily built man stood in front of it, painted with heavy oils and wielding a scythe, frowning angrily. Below the picture was a plaque.
‘Evil Bloodlines’ – Painting on the wall, First Floor Corridor – Police Station East Legends tell of the first settlers of Blackwater, led by British Priest Lucius Beaumont. Some say that he escaped England, others say he was exiled. The Beaumont family says he never even existed. Was he an evil megalomaniac with a hunger for blood and flesh, or is he just another urban legend?
Maybe we will never know for sure.
Alex looked at the painting queerly, gazing into Lucius’s eyes almost spellbound. As strange as it seemed, she never once recalled ever hearing the name of Lucius Beaumont; but that didn’t say a lot, her memory at this point was hardly trustworthy. As Lucius gazed back at her with a frown, she suddenly heard mysterious thoughts in her mind – thoughts that weren’t her own. Suddenly, she snapped out of her trance and stepped away from the strange painting, cautiously investigating the rest of the hall; occasionally looking back on Lucius with a peculiar feeling of familiarity.
Among the Fallen: Resurrection Page 23
