by mike Evans
The first of the dead came up toward Ian and he took the bar, ramming it up underneath its chin until it came out the top of its skull. The darkness in its eyes faded away and the only thing that held it up was Ian. Frank brought down the rebar on another’s skull breaking, it in half. Ian continued to check his phone as they made it further out, still not seeing any service. He was dying on the inside to know what happened to Megan and if she had made it safely back to their home.
The two men fought their way past, crushing heads and thankful that the others that were dead weren’t fast movers. When they made it to the doors that led to the lobby, they saw a sea of the dead. Frank yelled, “What the fuck do we do now?”
Ian was already thinking and said, “If you think there are a lot there, I can only imagine how many are outside. This is a virus, let's not forget this. I’d say anyone that had the flu is now, or will soon be, one of these….these things.”
“So, what you're saying is that we are trapped?”
“Yes ,Ian, unless we can figure out a way to get them interested in something else then I’d say trapped, fucked, and screwed all sound about right.”
Ian went to the wall phone, putting in Megan’s number. It rang and she answered, obviously scared for her life. “Ian, honey, are you okay? Is this Ian? Honey?”
“Yeah, baby it’s me. I got some bad news, though. We are trapped in the building, people are dead and they are everywhere. We don’t know what is going on, but we are pretty sure it has something to do with the flu. Our building went into lockdown mode and, for the moment, we are safe. We killed, or re-killed, all those things.”
Megan actually laughed at that, caught off guard. “Wait, what do you mean that you killed them? You wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Apparently, I would Megan. It was kill or…..well not really killed so much as eaten. Are you at home? Are you safe?”
“I am, but what do you want me to do? Do you want me to come there?”
“No, I want you to stay at home, stay safe, and let no one in. We will make it there, or I will. I just need some time to figure things out is all. I love you!”
The end
Mike Evans
G.U.N.T.H.E.R
Floor two
James Wallace
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Floor Two
Danny sat his computer trying to make the numbers staring at him make sense. He knew something in the formulas was wrong but had not been able to figure it out. The project he had been assigned to him a month ago seemed to be going in the wrong technical direction. When he joined the team he felt giddy at the idea of creating a fully automated first responder robot, that could make decisions on its own. Like an artificial intelligence, but unlike in the movies, this one would only be able to make its decisions based on guidelines input by its operator.
He sighed out loud, pushed his chair back on its wheels and rolled away from his desk. He got up and made his way over to his personal coffee station and poured the life-giving substance into his favorite oversized coffee cup. He loved this cup, not just because it could hold four normal cups of coffee in it, but because an old love had given it to him. It was black and in red words printed on its side it stated, “Computer Geeks do it with a hard drive and plenty of Ram.” He had laughed and snorted when he had opened the present and saw the cup for the first time. That had been close to three years now, and yet he held onto the last happy moment he had had with Dawn. She had left him for a football player while they were still in college.
He shook himself out of the memory and took a satisfying sip of the hot black coffee. He patted his way over to his desk and put the cup down. He couldn’t believe that he had this huge lab to himself. About a week ago the hardware guys were pulled from the project since they had finished their work on the sleek robot body. It had a human shape with a squat head resting on a small neck which was bolted onto its massive shoulders. Four arms protruded from its large torso, and two of the arms ended in what looked like human metal hands without skin. The other two ended in different kinds of tools. One looked like pincers and the other had a small saw, which could be swapped for different blades automatically built into its arm. Instead of normal human legs, the robot sat on a pair of treads like a tank would have but a much smaller version. Danny loved gaining inspiration from looking at the machine. He had grown so fond of it that he even gave it a name. Gunther, named after the title that was printed on the side of the famous robot in the Lost in Space TV show. The name had stood for General Utility Non Theorizing Environmental Robot. Officially his robot did not have a label, but some long alpha numeric designation.
Danny reached down and stretched his back while touching his toes, hearing and enjoying the pops his back emitted. He went through some Yoga poses he had learned while in college when he took a class with Dawn. He felt a little better when he had finished and decided to play around on the internet for a bit to help his mind relax. After retrieving his chair and sitting down he rolled back to his desk, minimized the window he had been working on and pulled up his Chrome browser. He read through a couple of NFL web pages and noted his Raiders looked good this year, realizing they could actually reach the playoffs after a thirteen-year drought. He then brought up his personal email and deleted a bunch of junk mail and spam. There was an email from an address he didn’t recognize. When he opened it he promptly wished he hadn’t. It was an email from Dawn saying she was in town for business and would love to meet up for a drink. At the bottom she said she missed him and left her cell number. Danny reached over absentmindedly, took a large gulp off his coffee cup and closed his eyes enjoying the bold almost spicy richness of his special brew. The warmth as it made its way down to his stomach was soothing. He closed the email and pulled up Facebook. Smiling and chuckling at some of the memes, and updates from his friends. He read up on some new books his favorite authors were releasing and made a mental note to buy them for his kindle.
He looked up and noticed his message notifications showed one highlighted in red, indicating he had a private message. It was Dawn. Danny groaned, ignored the message and logged out of Facebook. He sat staring at his desktop on the computer and drank his coffee lost in thought. His mind filtered through multiple subjects, which was weird since he sucked at multitasking. He either concentrated on one thing till he beat the shit out of it to solve it or he went crazy. Thank God he hadn’t run into a problem he couldn’t solve.
Danny, went back to the window that held the data he had been trying to fix and delved back into the problems at hand. After three more hours and writing new code, he decided to give it a live test. He uploaded everything he had into the Gunther’s on board computer and brought the behemoth’s power levels up from sleep to wake mode. Once done he ran the onboard diagnostics he designed and watched as everything came back normal. He pumped his fist into the air and spun in his chair to watch Gunther as it went through its new programming.
Its eyes glowed red as it came to life, and moved its body in another diagnostic test to verify the servos and actuators were working correctly. The head swiveled toward Danny and stopped when it set its tracking software and recognition systems.
“Danny, I have finished the testing of the new software you uploaded and find it to be viable. Congratulations on your success. I will now run the decision matrixes and go through the necessary tests and functions.” The voice came from a speaker mounted where the mouth would be on a human face. The voice was not synthesized like you’d find from an eighties show. Instead as a joke Danny had uploaded Christopher Walken’s voice and mannerisms. The bosses had laughed at fir
st, but made him promise he would change it at a later date to something more formal.
“Excellent Gunther. Thank you for the compliment. We don’t have much room in here, so we will conduct the majority of the tests when we can move outside to the alternate testing area. Why don’t you move around the lab and run tests on items you see? Also work on your dexterity. I am going to head out for lunch and will be back as soon as I can.” Danny grabbed his ID badge and keys off the desk and started off for the door.
“Danny, you have forgotten your wallet.” Gunther disconnected from the power and communication leads, rolled over to Danny’s desk, and snatched up his wallet in one of his human like hands. He moved gracefully around obstacles and stopped three feet from Danny, moving his arm up and extending it out to offer the wallet.
Dany took it, tucked it into his lab coat, and extended his hand. Gunther reached out and, using a very soft but firm handshake, shook the proffered hand. “Thank you Gunther.”
“You are welcome, Danny.” The robot turned on his tracks and headed back to his test area.
Danny slid his ID through a reader on the door and waited for the locks to unlatch. He entered the main hallway that housed a cube farm of scientists and bean counters or accountants, depending on how you looked at them. He waved at a couple of people he knew and caught the elevator just before the doors could close. The building was huge and housed many different businesses, from lawyers to his technical firm along with a slew of independent shared floors. Danny pulled his earphones from his pocket jacked them into his cell phone, and put the buds into his ears. He turned on his rock cheese playlist and started bobbing his head to the band Giant from the eighties.
The doors slid open and he walked across the expansive lobby, nodding his head to a couple of security officers manning their desks. He exited through the big double doors and found himself outside in the sunshine and cool wind. After being in his lab since five in the morning working his ass off, it was refreshingly nice to be outside among real people. He rushed across the street to a hot dog cart and sat by the concrete fountain outside the lobby of his building. He knew he would have heart burn later from the spicy dog he was scarfing down but he had Pepcid in his desk and would down two when he got back.
He finished his dog downed the sugary soda he had bought, and threw them into the receptacle can nearby. His eyes lifted up to squint at the sun, letting it beat down on his face. Warming him. He took out his smart phone and noted the time, deciding he had had enough time away from Gunther and started making his way back to the lobby. He noticed a small knot of dirty shambling people coming up the walkway and figured that a homeless group must be out looking for change and food. He had nothing to give and wanted to get back into the office so he picked up his pace to a slight jog, passing some of his coworkers as well as the other residents of the building.
Once through the door he made his way over to a guard.
“You guys might want to stop them from getting in here.” The guard looked past him and saw one of the vagrants stumble through the door, grabbing a woman dressed high in an expensive pant suit carrying a black valise and chatting on her cell phone.
The vagrant grabbed the woman’s hair, pulled her back, and it looked like it was kissing her neck passionately. The woman screamed with pain and anger and pulled away from her attacker, grabbing onto her neck where blood was seeping through her hands. She looked around for help and a nurse who worked in the building ran over in her blue scrubs, attempting to help the woman. She was attacked by the vagrant next. In this case the nurse looked street wise and kicked the attacker back as her face was scratched, drawing a little bit of blood. The guard Danny had spoken to ran into the fray grabbed the vagrant, and pushed it out the lobby doors and disappeared out the frosted windows.
Another scream caught Danny’s attention as another vagrant attacked a man from Danny’s floor. The coworker was Eric, Danny thought. Eric’s arm and suit jacket sleeve were being bitten and the vagrant was shaking his head like a dog would trying to wrench a tasty morsel free. Danny ran in his direction and punched the vagrant in the head as hard as he could. The attacker didn’t even look stunned, and went back trying to eat through Eric’s suit jacket. Another guard appeared and used his baton to knock the attacker to the ground and pushed Eric in Danny’s direction.
“Get him out of here and let the guards behind the desk know what’s going on.”
Danny grabbed Eric, and they ran together toward the elevator banks where the guards manned the central desk. Danny slammed down on the desk to get both guard’s attention.
“Two hobos are in the lobby attacking people and I think I saw more trying to get in. Call the police and go help!” Danny yelled at the top of his lungs.
Both guards looked stunned for a minute but sprang into action. One of the guards grabbed a giant 10 D cell flashlight, jumped the counter and took off running. Danny could hear what sounded like chaos going on near the front door more screaming and yelling being emitted. The other guard started talking into his radio and pointed toward the elevators.
“Unless you need medical attention get out of here.”
That was all Danny needed. He grabbed Eric and started making their way to the elevators. Eric jabbed their floor number and waited for the doors to open. Danny stepped back till he could see into the lobby and watched as more people fought with their attackers. But the guards seemed to finally get them under control. I watched as they threw the last of them through the lobby doors. A loud beeping sound emitted and a metal mesh gate slammed down, efficiently locking down the building and doors. A quick count by Danny came to twenty or so people hurt. Just then the elevator doors dinged and opened.
They pushed their way in Eric pushed the button labeled for the second floor and held down the door close button. They rode the minute to their floor in silence. The doors slid open on the floor and Danny took Eric’s arm and steered him to the lunch room just off the bathrooms. Danny grabbed the first aid kit hanging on the wall next to the sink and sat Eric down at one of the tables. As Danny opened the kit and started pulling out supplies Eric removed his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeve. Two small crescents of a bite mark stared back at them, along with a trickle of blood from the end of the bite.
“Damn, that looks like it hurts badly! You okay, Eric? Want me to call an Ambulance?” Danny pulled on a pair of blue vinyl gloves and used an alcohol wipe and a small roll of gauze to clean the wound. Next he applied a liberal bit of antibiotic cream and wrapped Eric’s arm with some more gauze, using the medical tape present to secure it.
Eric hissed as the alcohol burned and stung his arm.
“Yeah it hurts but I don’t think I need an ambulance. I’ll stop by the med clinic and get a shot and have it looked at after work. I am sure the guards probably already called the police and will take care of that part. That, and look it barely broke the skin. I’ve had worse paper cuts. Thank you for jumping in and helping Danny. I owe you a beer.”
“A beer and a taco. Then we call it evan.” Danny said with a smile. “Now I have to get back to the lab, Gunther is up and running a new test program.”
“Wow, you solved the code problem?” Eric was one of the engineers on the floor who had helped with Gunther’s hardware.
“I hope I did. That’s why he’s running tests. I’ll let you know after work if I succeeded. Take care, and no more fighting with bums. I think that is enough excitement for both of us today.” Danny waved and closed up the kit and put it back by the sink. He trotted out to his lab, using his key code to unlock the room, and entered. When he entered, he spotted Gunther using his saw, with help from his arms to build a small wood and metal sculpture. He completed using a set of incomplete instructions to test his thought process and decision matrix. He looked like he was doing better than the last time.
Danny slid into his chair and pulled up the data logs that charted every move and decision Gunther had made in the last hour. He idly chewed on a toothpic
k he took out of a holder he kept on his desk. The further he read and analyzed the data, the bigger and brighter his smile became. He finally sat back in his chair and drained the rest of his coffee, which had gotten cold. He hit a couple of keys on his keyboard and his playlist of eighties cheese rock blared out from his Bose speakers he had scattered through the lab. Danny turned and examined the empty coffee pot. His need for caffeine was so strong, he decided to leave his lab to raid the soda machine in the cafeteria.
“Gunther, you did great on the tests. Please run your post diagnostics and reconnect back to the power leads to top off your batteries. I’m going to leave the lab and grab something to drink. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”
“Yes Danny. I will reconnect to the power source while running the post action diagnostics.” Gunther rolled back to his cradle and using his human like hands reinserted the power cables that hung from the ceiling. Within seconds he was running diagnostics, which immediately began streaming to Danny’s work station.
Danny bopped his head to the music as he made his way to the secured door. He swung his card key and opened the door to utter mayhem. The office was a mess with chairs knocked over and people screaming for help. Danny stood rooted in place as the lab door slammed shut and locked behind him. He watched what looked like four people tackle one of the secretaries, to the ground pulling pieces of bloody meat to their mouths, chewing loudly. Her screams were so loud he was amazed a human could make that sound. All around the office people were being attacked and torn apart, spilling blood. Pieces of flesh and meat were thrown into the air and scattered on the floor and desks.
It occurred to Danny he should try and run through the crowd to the elevator to get away from the violence. He took three tentative steps toward the elevator bank, which was a good hundred feet away, but stopped dead in his tracks when a blood covered Eric emerged from behind a cube. He stood swaying and watching him intently. Danny was terrified, his legs starting to shake, but he couldn’t get them to move. He attempted to scream and nothing but an awkward squeak came out. He scanned the room quickly, examining and looking for a way to escape what he was sure was his imminent death. All he saw were death traps, with wild people in each direction. He watched as the small group of people climbed off the secretary and stood, watching Eric and waiting for him to make the first move. The one thing he never expected to happen came next. The woman, or what was left of her rose from the ground and stood with those that had attacked her. Her mid-section was ripped open showing her organs and intestines, one eye missing, and everything from her left shoulder down gone. Danny took a small step back toward his lab’s secured door, and then another step when the, whatever they are didn’t move.
