Excitement lit John’s features; Wilfred hadn’t seen him this animated in years. “It went well.” He then turned back to the window.
The frown that crushed Wilfred’s face was automatic, and he let his words out slowly despite the urge to scream them at the man. “Why did you tell her I made it?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” John laughed. “She wouldn’t have believed I made it. The last thing I wanted was for her to be suspicious.” Lifting an eyebrow, he added, “We needed her to eat it after all.”
Reluctant to look into the room, Wilfred kept his attention on John. “And she ate the steak? It wasn’t too bloody?”
“It was, but it had to be; we couldn’t cook the virus.”
Heat radiated from Wilfred’s cheeks. Why had John done it?
Turing his long face back towards his colleague, John said, “What’s wrong with you? Are you letting your emotions get the better of you again?”
While grinding his jaw, Wilfred counted silently to three. He then took a deep breath, exhaled and moved next to the slight man. When he got close enough, the smell of bleach hit the back of his throat. The air tasted like a swimming pool. No matter how much time he spent around John, he’d never get used to it. He then looked through the window. Seeing Alice slumped over the table in the middle of the room clamped his stomach tight, and a rich shot of acidic bile lifted into his throat. A tearing pain cut through his chest when he looked at her blonde hair splayed out like a halo. What had she done to deserve this?
“It happened exactly like the dogs we tested it on, Wilfred. The blood vessels in her eyes exploded, turning the whites red in an instant. They even bled.” A huge grin opened up John’s long face, and his eyes spread wide. “I could predict exactly when to leave. Exactly!”
Unable to take his eyes off the woman in the room, Wilfred jumped when she twitched. The surge of adrenaline ran a gentle wobble through his hands. It was different seeing it happen to dogs. He didn’t have a relationship with them like he had with Alice. A lump rose in his throat that he swallowed against. “Is she okay?”
“Of course she’s not okay. That’s the point!”
Of course. Stupid bloody question, Wilfred thought.
Turning away from the window again, John said, “Are you okay? Is this getting a bit too much for you?”
The conversation was cut dead when Alice flicked her head up. Two sticky lines of blood stretched away from her eyeballs in thick tendrils. Her sharp head movements made her loose jaw swing.
“Jesus,” Wilfred whispered when he saw the lines of claret running down her cheeks. She then vomited blood onto the table in front of her. It covered most of the white surface and spilled over the sides, raining onto the floor. The thick splattering echoed around the sparsely furnished room.
Hot saliva gushed down Wilfred’s throat, and a slow heave rolled through his ample gut. Putting his hand on the cold wall to steady himself, he turned to look at John.
The scrawny man watched on with childlike fascination, excitement shimmering on his face. “Watch this, Wilfred,” he said. “This is the best bit.” He tapped gently on the glass.
Snapping her head to look at the door, Alice then jumped to her feet. The chair shrieked as it skidded away from her and crashed to the ground. The loud clap of her hands slamming down on the table echoed around the room, and it took all Wilfred’s concentration to hold onto his bladder.
John smiled, pressed the intercom and said, “Come to Dada.” Speakers in the room amplified his voice.
Alice twisted her head with sharp movements, clearly searching for the source of the noise. The jerky head movements threw her long blonde hair away from her face. Seeing the trails of blood that ran from her ears, Wilfred looked down and noticed the spreading patch around her crotch. His chest tightened and he muttered, “Good god.”
A low laugh murmured from John’s throat. “She doesn’t know where we are.” He tapped the glass again with one of his long, bony fingers.
Alice locked on to it and took off. With her arms wind-milling and her mouth wide, dark with blood, she ran face first into the observation window.
Crunch! The impact threw her backwards as if she’d run into a brutal uppercut.
Wilfred looked away and dabbed his eyes with the corner of his sleeve. He took several deep breaths to try and pull his heart down from his neck.
Looking back up again, he stared at the explosion of red on the safety glass. Inside, Alice was still on her back, rolling and writhing.
“Look at it, Wilfred. Beautiful, ain’t it?”
Every muscle in Wilfred’s body fell slack as he looked at the man. He then said, “Her! Not it!”
The bony scientist shrugged.
Scrabbling like a spider on ice, Alice got to her feet again. Heavy breaths rocked her body before she screamed once more. Within two steps, she was at full sprint. Within four, she’d hit the window again and was on her back.
“There’s no way this door’s giving, love.” John laughed as he turned to Wilfred. “It’s designed to withstand an atomic blast–literally. No one’s getting in and no one’s getting out. At points, there’s been information in here that in the wrong hands would give the East a huge advantage over us in this bloody stalemate.”
None of this was news to Wilfred. And it wasn’t impenetrable, but John didn’t need to know that. Not yet anyway.
“Also,” the long scientist pointed along the corridor leading away from his living quarters, “that corridor is broken up into four bomb-proof sections. Even if she got through one door, there’s no chance of her getting through all of them.”
Lifting a shrug through his thick shoulders, Wilfred asked, “So what now?”
“We observe. I want to enjoy this because we won’t get permission to test on a human subject again.”
“And you’re confident that you can find a vaccine?”
“Of course, Wilfred. I’m The West’s leading germ warfare scientist.”
And don’t we bloody know it! “You know that we had permission to test this on anyone, right?”
John nodded.
“So why her?”
The reply was instant. “I like a challenge.” It was all about him.
“A challenge?” Wilfred cleared his throat and took a step back. “But, John,” he said, balling his fists again, his eyes watering more than before, “she’s your wife?”
Twenty long minutes passed where Wilfred stood and listened to Alice attacking the door. Every time it went quiet, his pulse settled before she returned to it with more venom than before–growling, screaming, punching.
Only once everything had calmed down did Wilfred move next to his colleague again to look into the room. The glass was slick with blood that threw a red filter over everything.
They watched Alice, lost in her own private hell as she paced the room. She crashed into a chair, a loud screech tearing through her prison. Turning on the inanimate object, she dropped into a defensive hunch and snarled at it.
“Look at that,” John said with a laugh.
With a craving for violence twitching through his muscles, Wilfred chose not to look at the man. Instead, he continued watching Alice.
Snapping at the air, blood spluttering from her mouth, Alice screamed.
The sound electrified Wilfred’s spine. Pulling a stuttered breath through his body, he asked, “Do you think she’s in pain.”
“Probably.”
The man didn’t have a shred of empathy. He should be the one on the other side of the door, not Alice. After several heavy gulps, Wilfred accepted that the lump in his throat wouldn’t budge.
The button on the intercom buzzed when John pressed it, and his cold voice came through the speakers in the room. “There there, my dear. Now listen to me.”
She stopped still, tilted her head to one side and shuffled up to the glass. It seemed that her frenzied mind still recognised her husband’s voice. When she was just an inch away from them, she stopped. She was
n’t about to run into the door again.
Wilfred only realised he’d been holding his breath when his head spun. After catching it again, he said, “How does she know where the door is?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she can see.”
“Through bleeding eyes?”
After shrugging, John turned to Alice. “We’ll have a cure for this, my love. When we do, you can congratulate yourself for having helped your country. The vaccine will mean we can drop the virus on China and end this Cold War. You’re an integral part to keeping power in the West.”
This was the most compassionate Wilfred had ever seen John being to his wife. Having been one of the few people at their wedding, as a witness rather than a guest–a lab partner in an experiment–Wilfred had watched John recite his vows as if they were an apparatus list for the most basic experiment. For the entire service, he wanted to scream for it to stop. He’d have treated her so much better than John ever could. He treated marriage to his beautiful bride like it was a necessary inconvenience at best. Alice had tears in her eyes the whole day. When Wilfred asked her why she’d married John, she said she loved his wonderful mind, and she wanted to learn from him. She realised they were the wrong reasons but lifted her ring and said, “Bit too late now, isn’t it?”
When Alice pushed a hiss across the roof of her mouth, Wilfred recovered from his daydream. Pressing her forehead against the glass, she snapped slowly at the air.
Playing a part in this heinous act, no matter how unconsciously, had sealed Wilfred’s fate. When his time came, he’d be judged for his actions. Taking several steps back, Wilfred moved to the end of the corridor and the second reinforced door. “So, we need to use this area for quarantining?”
“I wouldn’t worry, Wilfred.” John knocked on the glass, and Alice bit at his movement. “This door can survive an atomic blast.”
Swiping his card through the reader, Wilfred watched the red light turn green and the door pop away from its frame. John seemed oblivious.
After stepping through and closing it behind himself, Wilfred listened to the four bolts extend from inside the door and slide into the frame. The finality of the sound tied a weight to his heart.
The action had grabbed John’s attention. His eyes narrowed and he said, “I’m ready to come out now, Wilfred.”
Clearing his throat, Wilfred sighed and looked at the floor. “I’m afraid that isn’t going to happen, John.”
After throwing a glance at the security camera currently trained on him, John looked back at Wilfred. “Now come on, Wilf, don’t be silly.”
“I’m sorry, John, I really am, but they need to study how this virus spreads.”
The slight pink hue to John’s skin vanished, and his grey face sank. “What about my research? How will you find a cure?”
“They have your research. They’ve been copying it for months now. They always like to have a backup in case something goes wrong.”
Marching towards the door, John lashed his bony fist against the glass. The weak gesture was no atomic blast. “How can you do this to me? You’re supposed to be my friend!”
Like he knew the meaning of the word. “We need another subject for this experiment, John.” Wilfred’s voice shook and his face glowed. “When you chose your wife, you showed that you weren’t someone to be trusted. If in the name of science, you’re prepared to do this to her, then what would you do to us if the need arose?”
Pressing a long bony hand against the glass, John said, “Wilfred, wait! There are things in my head that no one knows.” Jabbing a bony finger at his temple, he added, “It’s in here. I have the cure.”
With his mouth buckling, Wilfred said, “You understand that it’s not me making these decisions, don’t you, John? I didn’t even know about this experiment until you’d sat down with Alice. The only reason I agreed to come down here was because I thought I might be able to stop it. But now I’ve seen what you’ve done to her…” Wilfred sighed again and rubbed his temples with a shaky hand.
“But who’ll find the cure? I know this virus inside out. No one else will discover it.” A vein throbbed at his temple and his eyes widened. “You need me!”
“There’s no doubt that you have a great scientific mind. The best I’ve met.”
John nodded. He already knew this.
“But in your quest to understand the world, you’ve lost what it means to be human. Your lack of empathy makes you a liability.”
Pressing his face to the glass, condensation growing and shrinking with his breath, John said, “Please let me out! Don’t kill me! I can win this war.”
Wilfred shook his head. “At what cost, John? You’ve just killed your wife! She deserved so much better than you.”
The panic left John’s face as he stared at his colleague. “So that’s what this is about?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Alice. You’re jealous that she chose me.”
Shaking his head, Wilfred said, “Shut up. You deserve to die. You’re a murderer.”
“That may be true.” Crow’s feet spread out from his eyes as they narrowed, and his tone dropped. “But you’re not, Wilf. You don’t kill people.”
The statement drew a sharp knife across Wilfred’s stomach and emptied his guts on the floor. His head spun and he looked away. John was right.
Knocking on the glass, John said, “Can you live with killing a human being, Wilfred?”
Moving out of view, Wilfred leant against the wall next to the door.
“Come on, Wilfred,” John said. “Please let me out. Please.”
The security camera in Wilfred’s section looked down at him. The orders that he’d been given repeated through his mind. “John needs to be infected. We need to see how it spreads.”
“No!” Wilfred shouted as if in response to his own thoughts. “No. I can’t do this. John’s right, I’m not a murderer. I can’t be a part of this!”
The camera shifted slightly. They were watching. Of course they were watching.
“Thank you,” John said, relieved.
“I’m not doing this for you.” A bitter taste rose into Wilfred’s mouth and he spat on the floor. “I’m doing it for me. I don’t want this on my conscience.”
A high shrug lifted John’s scrawny shoulders. “Whatever your reason, it’s the right choice.”
If Wilfred never had to look at John’s face again, it would be too soon. Focusing on his top pocket, he removed his keycard and swiped it through the reader. “You’re judgment will come, John. However, it’s not up to me to make it.”
The door didn’t open.
John's eyes widened. “What’s happening, Wilfred?”
With a shaking hand, Wilfred swiped the card again. The tiny red light on the box stayed red. Repeated swipes returned the same result. “It’s not working.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not working. My card. It’s not working.” Looking up at the camera watching him, Wilfred said, “We have a problem! My card isn’t working.”
The camera stared back. The only sign of life in the cold eye was a shifting of darkness behind the lens as it zoomed in.
Every muscle in Wilfred’s body sank, and he turned to John. “I’m sorry.”
The door behind John clicked and popped open.
John ran at it, but he was too slow. It flew open and knocked him backwards. Alice burst through and crashed into the opposite wall face first.
John sat up and shuffled away. He got to his feet, but Alice was quicker. She careened into him. He screamed, and they both crashed to the floor again.
A guttural growl.
Snapping jaws.
Breaking windpipe.
Dripping blood.
Silence.
The raw meat didn’t bother her now.
Wilfred clamped his hands so firmly over his ears that the vacuum swelled against his eardrums. It didn’t stop him from hearing the wet sloppy crunching from the neighbouring corridor
.
When he looked up to see Alice with her forehead pressed against the window, licking the glass as if her saliva would corrode it, the images of John’s bloody corpse vanished from his mind. He was the one that she intended to feed on now.
“No!” he shouted, his shrill cry bouncing off the walls of the empty chamber. Rubbing the damp lines from his cheeks and the snot from his nose, he shuffled backwards until he hit the corner of the room. The wall was cold and hard against his back, and the smell of disinfectant rose from the floor.
A deep heave lifted bitter acid up his throat as he watched her. Bloody eyes. Snapping jaws. Twitching head. Lumps of flesh stuck to her chin and smeared on the window.
Then she turned away, leaving behind a thick print of blood.
The space was filled instantly, and Wilfred covered his face. “No,” he said again, but it was too late. The image had left an imprint. John’s piercing blue eyes were buried beneath a film of blood that ran claret tears down his pale cheeks. A snarl hung off his limp features.
A thick and nauseating pain swelled in Wilfred’s chest and stomach. Was he going to shit himself where he sat? There was nothing he could have done about Alice. John, however, was totally his doing.
The white corridor was blurry when he pulled his hands down. Not blurry enough to prevent him from seeing the huge gash in John’s neck. Not blurry enough to hide the bloody crater where his ear used to be.
Biting down so hard that his teeth hurt, Wilfred turned to the security camera. Pointing up at it, spittle shooting from his mouth, he said, “How dare you do this to me? How dare you drag me into this mess?”
The camera turned to get a better look at him.
“That’s right!” Wilfred shouted. “Stare at me from behind a lens, you fucking cowards!”
His raised voice irritated Alice and John, who were now both at the window, banging against it with bloody fists. They had no interest in one another; all they wanted was Wilfred.
“You’ll be judged when your time is up. You’ll pay for this with your souls!” Getting to his feet, Wilfred walked over to the camera until he was directly beneath it. It was too high for him to grab, but he stared up and shouted, “And before that, you’ll be judged in the courts. Permission was given for one death. One!” Throwing an angry finger at the door, he continued, “John wasn’t an accident. John was murder! Murder that I realised should have been prevented. But you wouldn’t let me. I realised it was wrong, and you overrode me. You’re the ones to blame, not me!”
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