by mike Evans
Ian went to say something in his defense of indie scientists, but Frank had turned his full attention to Steven. He put on a plastic set of gloves, grabbed his mangled arm with one hand, and set the titanium arm next to it.
Ian said, “This is where the cool shit that is going to make me really happy I came here happens, isn’t it?”
Frank winked, pushing a button to activate the arm. A blue light came out of the rear of it, scanning what was left of the arm. A needle ejected from the end into the arm and a beep went off when it was done.
Frank said, “It isn’t done, but that needle was for the soldier who is in pain. It completely numbs the arm for about five minutes.” The machine then cauterized the wound and the sickening smell of burnt flesh went through the room. Once the burning flesh stopped, Frank pulled it away to show a much cleaner looking wound. The arm extended from there, wrapping itself around his shoulder all the way to the bicep.
“Now, Ian, if that was a normal man who had a heartbeat he would have full function of that arm by now. He would be able to do anything he could have before; except he could do it probably twenty times better.”
“I don’t know that I understand, Frank.”
Frank pressed the button on the arm, putting a steel bar in grip of the hand and then had it squeeze. When it did, the hand gripped it so hard that it snapped the three-inch bar in half.
Ian bent down, picking it up. “How in the Hell did you do that?”
Frank smiled, pointed to the arm, and said, “That, my boy, is a shit ton of money and time, and serious engineering skills. By the time you're done, you will be able to do the same thing and you're going to be able to make it so much better. These only run for about four hours, but in a war application the idea is that they can get to a medic in that time. Once the battery dies it can be replaced, but we haven’t figured out quick ways to do it, and you’d have to be damn good to do it with one hand. So, if you aren’t using the unit, make sure to keep the battery off.”
Ian smiled. “You know, I think we are going to do some pretty awesome things here, Frank.”
“You’d better. Now, I have a stack of folders over there and I want you to dive in. I'm sure a lot of it will seem like child’s play to you, but you need to get in the boat before you try and row it.”
Ian gave a flimsy salute and headed to the stack to begin working. “I’ll get started. I should be able to get through a lot of this today. I can work during lunch, too.”
“We have caterers we usually use, but I'm taking you out if you do a good job today. Benefit of a big company is they like to make sure we are well fed. Hope you didn’t have any aspirations of a six pack in your life.”
Chapter Three
12 PM Friday
Megan drove along slowly, getting the creepy crawlies as she watched the sick standing in line to get into the flu clinics. She had her phone up saying, “Yes Mom, I'm going to tell him any day now. It’s just, with the move and with the new job, I thought that if I told him we were expecting that he might lose his shit. Like literally, right in his boxers.”
“Oh, that is just a lovely vision Megan Marie, thank you for that. You need to tell him before it hits nine months or you're going to have to figure out something else, for sure.”
Megan watched a man walking toward the curb and started to speed up to make sure she missed him. When she got closer she watched, seeing that the man had blood running down the side of his neck and shirt.
“I need to let you go, Mom. There’s someone on the side of the road and they look like they need help.”
“Well you're in the big city now, not free loving California. When you see something weird out there you roll the windows up, lock the door, and keep on driving. It isn’t just about you now. You have my grandchild in you and you need to keep the two of you safe.”
“Okay Mother, I just want to make sure that he’s okay. I’ll talk to you later. I love you.” She hung up the phone, tossing it on the seat before she could rebut with anything else. Megan rolled the window down and asked, “Sir, are you okay?”
The man looked at Megan and she instantly thought he was some sort of pervert checking out her cleavage. He stumbled off the sidewalk, heading directly for her and wobbling side to side with his arms outstretched.
She punched the gas, pulled the car away again without stopping, and stuck to her mother’s advice. The man lunged, jumped, and cracked his head on the car. Megan cursed, looking back at him while not wanting to leave the scene of an accident. When she turned back around, there were a dozen people in the street, they all walked slowly and looked confused. She hit the brakes, trying to stop, but the car began to fishtail. She screamed, “Oh, fuck!”
She closed her eyes, not wanting to think about what she was about to do, and the car slammed into the group. To her amazement, none of them yelled. She sat there for a minute, catching her breath before opening the door. She screamed, “Oh my God, are you okay? Are you okay? I didn’t mean to do that, I didn’t mean to hit you. What the fuck were you doing in the middle of the road? Were you trying to get hit? Does anyone need an ambulance?”
Those that had been hit had bones sticking out of them in every which direction. Upon seeing this, Megan vomited instantly, trying to sustain, but it was of no use. She wanted to help them up, and more importantly, off her car that was usually an eggshell white but looked more like a blood splatter painter had come across. She reached in her pocket, thinking she should call 911 for help. The people slowly started to rise from the ground. They growled and when Megan saw them, she thought that it was a twisted miracle.
“Oh my, good Lord, are you okay? I can’t believe any of you are standing.”
They started walking toward her with hands outstretched and making a gripping motion with both hands. She started walking backwards, looking behind her and seeing that the streets were becoming filled with people like them. Cars were slamming on their brakes left and right, skidding into people. She watched as bodies flew through the air, and just as these had been, they started pushing back to their feet. Megan got a sick feeling as she couldn’t help but notice there were no screams of pain coming from anyone. She tried to get into the car, but they were in front of the door. Megan sprinted around the side of the car, never happier to find the passenger door unlocked. When she slid in, one of the dead fell into the driver’s seat. She kicked out at it once, twice, and three times in the face until it fell back out and onto the ground. She climbed over the seat, closed the door, put it in gear, and didn’t care about those that had not gotten up yet. She floored the car, speeding away and bouncing up and over the bodies still in the street.
Megan gripped her phone while trying her best to get the bloody windshield clean again. She dialed Ian’s number and it went straight to voicemail. She sent a text while cursing as much as she could saying, “911! Please, please call me now! Life or death. I love you, please be careful!”
Chapter Four
12:30 PM Friday
Ian and Frank rushed through the last hall until they were back to the office. The two men started locking down the research technology as quickly as they could. The amount of gear they had out took them an hour to secure. Frank said, “I never have more than one thing out at a time. I wanted you to get a good sense of why you picked us and that it was worth it. Going forward, you have one item out, and then you put that shit away when you are done with it. One tool, one gadget. We aren’t slobs.”
Ian was nodding but when he looked out the doors said, “Sir, or Frank, I think you should come and look at this.”
When Frank did, he saw that a dozen men or better were lying every which direction on the long white floor. There were two to three men around each one of them loosening ties and unbuttoning their shirts. Frank got the phone, calling security. The look on his face when he hung up the phone was one of shock.
Ian asked, “What is it, Frank? What did they say?”
“They said there was an emergency and they
were fucking busy and to sit tight. I asked if they could call medics and the police and that was the same response that they had gotten from them. What kind of bullshit is that?”
Ian took out his cell to call his wife, but saw there were zero bars and cursed, “Smart phone my fucking ass.”
When Frank set the phone down to bring it back up, he listened for the dial tone and saw that they were on their own. Communication had gone dark. The lights started to flicker until the yellow halogen went away and only a red light came back on. Ian said, “Well this isn't fucking creepy or anything, is it? What are we going to do now? Are we safe in here?”
Frank went to say yes as the air pressure lock released and the door slowly began to open.
“Well, we were safe. I don’t think we are anymore. We are running on reserves right now. Maybe we should go out and see if those guys need any help?”
Ian looked back, seeing the closest person who looked comatose and on the ground was now gripping on to the closest man, pulling him down. Ian couldn’t make it register in his mind what was happening. “Frank, can you please get the Hell over here. I don’t know what in God’s name is going on. There’s so much blood.”
“What do you mean there is-“
Frank stood there in awe, having the same issues as well. He saw blood squirting into the air and landing on the white tile floor. The other men who had been trying to assist were now trapped on the slippery surface. When they fell to the ground, the man that had fallen rolled over on top of them, ripping their Adam's apples off and not stopping until was in their jugular. It seemed like the more it ripped the hungrier it became.
Frank stepped back when the other men started doing the same thing. He looked at the door and cursed the genius who had designed the facility and said that door handles weren’t necessary because they’d never go into lock down mode.
Ian saw the look on his face and said, “What are you doing standing there? We need to go help those guys. There’s something wrong with them. What the Hell is he doing, eating them? I mean, I don’t understand. A few hours ago when I came in they looked like death warmed over from the flu shot.”
“I'm starting to think it isn’t the flu, kid. I don’t know what it is, but there sure as hell has never been a reaction to the flu like that before. There’s something seriously fucked up with them.”
Ian nodded his head, watching as the closest man had quite the contrast going in his outfit. When he pushed off the ground, he had bits and pieces of intestine falling freely from his mouth. His entire front half was a crimson red and his rear was still starch white. When the man saw Ian staring, he started hobbling toward him. Ian watched, seeing that his motor movement looked very handicapped. Ian said, “I don’t know what the Hell is wrong with them, but they look like they are eating those men.”
“They shouldn’t be eating people. They aren’t fucking canni-”
Frank stopped talking, really getting a good look at the men. The first thing that came to his mind was that they were in the rear of a building filled with some type of freaks that weren’t getting any healthier. He looked at the men that were convulsing on the ground and were slowly starting to rise from the floor. Frank yelled, “We need weapons. We need something that we can take these guys out with.”
Ian looked around the room, seeing a plethora of different things that were bolted to the wall and useless. Ian spotted a steel pipe and sprinted for it, weighing it in his hands and liking that it was almost uncomfortable to hold. Ian said, “I got a pipe. What are you going to use?”
Frank looked around wishing, he had some serious hardware that he could use but couldn’t think of anything. Ian ran back to the doorway, holding the pipe. He yelled, “What do you want me to do, Frank?”
“I don’t fucking know, kid, knock them the Hell out if that is your only choice. Just buy us some time while I think of something.”
Ian hit the man as he walked up, jabbing him in the gut with the rod. The man didn’t so much as flinch and, when he started walking back toward him, a second time he lodged it so hard that it went through front to back. His guts started dropping out of the rear of his spine. Frank saw the hit and yelled, “Way to go, Ian!”
Ian looked back, giving a thumb up and expecting him to fall over. He did not and, instead, he started walking with a definite wobble in his step towards Ian, arms still out and still hungry. Ian said, “Why don’t you get the fuck away from me you fucking weirdo.”
He realized that, from an engineering standpoint, he had very little options at the present considering that he had a four-foot pole rammed through his spine. When the man continued to approach he yelled, “Frank, Frank, what do you want me to do? He’s not going down. He doesn’t even seem to care?”
“Then pull it out and stick it through his fucking head!”
He did as told and pulled it out slowly, watching the blood and guts coming out of the hole with it and hitting the ground. The dead slowed down as it tried to negotiate the slippery floor until both feet went up into the air. Ian yelled, “Hey, they don’t have any motor skills. I think we got this!”
Frank didn’t have the victory smile on his face that Ian did. He said, “You better pay attention. That thing is only a foot away from your ankle.”
Ian looked down and saw the man crawl toward him. Its mouth was wide open with a bloody snarl and blackened tongue extended toward his leg. Ian hopped back a step, brought the pole as high as he could, and brought it down. He looked more like a seasoned spear fisherman than an engineer in robotics.
Ian almost jumped in the air and brought it down, putting all one hundred and forty pounds into it. The blunt end of it did not so much as penetrate the things skull. Ian said, “Fuck this shit.”
Ian looked to Frank and said, “Are you going to do anything except stand there, for God sakes? Is this part of my mentorship program?”
Frank looked at the chain and said, “I got an idea, and it isn’t a good one. I need to know if the risk is going to be worth it or not.”
“What do you want me to do then?”
“I want you to swing that pipe like it’s a hockey stick up and over your head and down into its skull.”
Ian heard screams coming from the wounded freak on the ground and it was enough to get the attention of the people that were starting to rise from the ground on the main floor. Ian swung it once, twice, three times until its head made the same sound that a watermelon does and sent brains in every direction.
The two men stood there, not breathing and waiting impatiently as they both thought that they were going to jump out of their skin. When it did not move, Ian looked to Frank who said, “This is for both of us. Don’t worry I’m next.” He gripped Ian by the forearm, slamming his arm up against the wall and brought a heavy meat cleaver into it as hard as he could, cutting through the bone in one long vicious blow. Ian’s eyes rolled back into his head, but Frank slapped him as hard as he could. He took out a left-handed arm and put it up to Ian’s. He hit the power button, sticking the numbing agent needle into his newly exposed bone. The pain of the needle brought him back for a moment. Ian looked down at the blood spurting from his arm.
Frank yelled, “Up here, you look up here. We don't have anything down there you want to see for a second.” The smell of fresh burnt flesh made both of them sick to their stomachs. Ian started to sway where he stood, but Frank pushed him up against the wall.
Ian looked at his hand on the floor and yelled, “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“That we want to live, and neither of us have a God damn bit of muscle in our arms. We can now break a bowling bar open if we wanted to.”
Ian said, “What about your arms? Are you expecting me to save your ass?”
Frank said, “Nope, the best scientists lead by example and aren’t scared of their work when they've put the time into it.”
He ran to a second set of drawers, pulled out another right hand, and brought his hand down to snap off with a fresh c
leaver. Frank screamed in pain, his lip quivered as he tried to keep from passing out himself. Ian’s face was, for lack of better expression, dead white. He watched Frank slam his stump into the hand, letting the needle and cauterizer go to work.
Ian flexed his bicep and wiggled the machine’s hand. It felt like nothing he had ever experienced before. Ian gripped the bar that had fallen, ignoring Frank, and pulled it up. He knew that the wartime prosthetics were not dialed down for civilian use. He squeezed and watched in amazement as the bar started to bend and then snap off at the ends, leaving only a flat piece of steel in his hand. He gripped the steel again this, time squeezing the bar three feet higher and went back through it a second time.
Frank staggered over, getting close to Ian to see what he was doing. He asked, “What are you doing, Ian? You have the power of a God in your arm now.”
“I still don’t want to get close to those things. You did see them chewing on our co-workers, right?”
Frank bent down, taking the other half of the bar. He started laughing as he tested his newfound strength. Ian said, “Sorry, but what in the Hell could you possibly find funny about this?”
“That these hands are million plus dollar prototypes, and we are using three inch rebar to try and take out whatever these fucking things are. I only pray that they have a long shelf life.”
Ian saw three things coming and knew that these ones had plenty of fight left in them. He wrapped his robotic fingers around the bar, which now had a pointed end, and the two men walked through the laboratory door and out onto the main lab.
Ian said, “Are we going to be able to get out of here once we make it past these…..these things?”
“Not before we wouldn’t have. We can try to pry the front doors open, but first, we have to get there.”
