by Brad Knight
“At the labs in Shanghai. We found a cure. Well not a cure exactly, but we found a way to kill the virus. We found a way to shut it down.” Dr. Ivanova speech was a little off because the science behind it truly excited her. The usually stoic Russian was like a little kid. “It started as a serum to control certain strains of the nanite virus but we managed to tweak it so that it just completely turns each nanite off.”
“Slow down. Not a cure? What do you mean it's not a cure? What would it do to someone who is infected?” asked Meesang. She completely ignored the most important part. They had the serum that the Alphas needed so badly. It was the only reason that they were there.
“It would kill them.” Ivanova was very matter of fact in her answer.
General Xin joined the conversation. “You said you were able to weaponize it. Explain.”
“Well, we'd need some time and equipment but we can make it into a gas that could be dispersed through explosives, hoses, aerosol, anything really.”
“We do not have time or equipment. Do you have anything that can help us now?”
“I think we can put together a couple of syringes.”
General Xin had completely deflated Ivanova's balloon full of enthusiasm.
“Fine. That will do. Get started, doctor.” Maybe we can find some way to use those on the leaders. If not I can use it on myself. No matter what happens I am not going to be one of them.
***
It started with one screech, less than an hour before the sun started to rise. That one screech turned into two, into three and so on until no one could hear anything but infected screeches for miles around. Then the crowds of the creatures parted to make way for the three Alphas.
“They charge, you fire!” commanded General Xin through a bullhorn. Younger residents of the Phoenix Borroloola Base ran back and forth carrying bullets, water and anything else their older counterparts needed.
Come. We are as ready as we will ever be. General Xin felt his muscles tighten and loosen. His heart raced and his focus was at its height. He was prepared for his last command.
“What do you think they want?” Mrs. Meesang had no idea that Dr. Ivanonva had exactly what the Alphas wanted.
“They want to kill us,” answered General Xin.
The leader of the Alphas made eye contact with the General. It snarled. After dislocating it's jaw it let out a thunderous noise that dwarfed the joint screeches of all the infected under it's command. With that they charged the fences.
“Fire at will!” ordered General Xin. There was no turning back.
All hell broke loose. Gun fire and infected screeches created a soundtrack to the wanton destruction that was unleashed. From the roof, Xin got a bird’s eye view of the chaos.
They tried to scale the fences at first, but they were picked off by the waves of bullets that crashed over the open land outside the base. The creatures dropped off the chain link like flies. And to the overly and perhaps naive eye, it looked like the Phoenix members might have been able to hold off the intimidating assault. But there were more than one kind of infected creature.
General Xin heard crows. He heard a hell of a lot of crows. The problem was that he couldn't see them. Their black feathers against a night sky made it nearly impossible.
Mrs. Meesang and General Xin ducked at the last minute as a murder of crows flew just over them. If they hadn't of ducked they would have easily been taken out. Xin watched the newest wrinkle in their horrible situation.
Without proper warning, one of the Borroloola Base's watch towers was engulfed by infected crows. It's two occupants screamed as they tried to get the little pecking horrors off of them. They both fell to the dirt below and lay unmoving.
General Xin watched helplessly as the crows moved on to another watch tower. Just as he knew and feared, they were being steered. That was when a thought gained prominence within his mind. If he cut off the head, the snake would die. Or at least it would be easier to deal with.
Ivanova. I need that cure she was talking about. Then I will find their leader and take it out myself. I will end this before we lose everything.
“Where are you going?” Mrs. Meesang saw Xin head towards the door on the roof.
“To try and win this fight. Make sure that none of those things get over the fences. All it will take is one of them getting in to end us.” General Xin ran towards the door.
Xin reached for the door handle with his bandaged hand. He was so consumed with the idea of ending the battle that he forgot he was injured. Intense pain shot through his arm and radiated to the rest of his body as soon as he touched the cool metal.
Immediately upon reaching the other end of the roof top door, General Xin let his cool demeanor slip. Ever since he got back to Borroloola Base he felt off. He was feverish. He had a terrible headache. And his hands were starting to tremble.
General Xin rolled up the sleeve of his arm just above the bandaged hand. He had a feeling that he would see what he did. Still, seeing black veins going up his forearm like tree roots made him nauseous. There was no stopping himself from throwing up all over the stairs.
Pull yourself together. You are no good to anyone sick. Go get that serum. General Xin made his way down the stairs. It wasn't easy. The whole world felt like it was sailing on turbulent water. Not throwing up again was an impressive achievement.
The hallways of the Phoenix base were mostly empty. Every once in a while a kid would run through with supplies for the adults fighting outside. Every window he passed, General Xin took a glance at the fight. It didn't look encouraging.
Realizing that going over the fences wasn't going to work, the lead Alpha sent out the commands for his minions to try and topple them. In order to do so, they had to all bum rush them at once.
Mrs. Meesang watched as all the infected ran for the fences simultaneously. She had no military experience but General Xin did, and he had planned for the Alpha's new strategy.
“Blow them up and burn them!” ordered Mrs. Meesang through the bullhorn.
Flamethrowers originally intended to burn bush and undergrowth were re purposed so that the flames shot further and could be used as weapons. The brave men and women wielding them (and they were brave because it only took one stray bullet for them to burst into flames) stepped up to the fences.
Bright pillars of flame lit up the creatures at the fences. They burned but kept coming. That meant it was time to try and blow them up.
For numerous reasons, there was an abundance of explosives at Phoenix's Borroloola Base. None of them were meant for any offensive purposes. There were landmines, dynamite and shape charges. Xin had the shape charges and dynamite rigged around the perimeter to be used as last lines of defense. Things weren't that desperate yet so they used the landmines.
There wasn't time to bury them so instead General Xin had them modified. After the pressure switches were tripped there was a five second delay. That way they could be used like explosive frisbees reigning death on anything below them.
The explosives were thrown over the fences. Shrapnel and blast waves from the landmines took out handfuls of infected at a time. Some didn't quite make their way over the chain link though. There were a worrying amount of casualties from mines falling back down on the throwers.
General Xin's plan to burn and blow up the monsters was effective but it didn't account for their sheer numbers. The fences started to sway and bend as more and more of the creatures piled up. Having already delivered his hail mary, there was nothing left to throw at the enemy.
When he reached the lab, General Xin could hardly stand. He sweated profusely and his vision was almost gone. All he really saw were star bursts of light and blurry shapes.
“General? Are you... okay?” asked Dr. Ivanova. She couldn't help but notice his arrival as he stumbled around knocking into just about anything in his vicinity.
“I... serum... cure... we need it. Now!” General Xin's speech was slurred.
“It isn't ready yet.
Are you sick? I think you need to sit down.” Dr. Ivanova dropped what she was doing and went over to help him.
“There is no time. We need to use it now.” General Xin kept trying to get his hands on the serum as Dr. Ivanova sat him down on a nearby chair.
“Soon, General.” She made sure that Xin wouldn't fall out of his chair, then she joined her colleagues.
They are hiding it from me. Depriving me. Killing me. Not if I do it first. Not if I take it. General Xin wasn't thinking straight. An irrational paranoia and rage was building inside him. Even for a highly disciplined man such as himself, there was no controlling it.
He kept his focus on Dr. Ivanova and the other scientists who appeared to be conspiring against him. His feet moved on their own. And with each step he got more and more angry.
“General! Please sit. You'll not well.” Dr. Ivanova saw Xin and tried to sit him back down. When she put her hand on his shoulder he snapped. He grabbed her and bit into the side of her neck. She screamed as he tore a piece out with just his teeth.
Warm. That was the last coherent thought that General Xin had. He had turned. The other scientists in the Borroloola Base's lab didn't stand a chance.
After a flurry of screams, screeches and carnage, the creature formally known as General Xin stood in the gore of his victims. Dr. Ivanova was the only one left alive. She crawled through her and her comrades' blood towards the case holding the serum.
Outside the Borroloola Base, the lead Alpha sensed General Xin's transformation. Immediately it gave commands for the General to get his hands on the serum. Once in hand, Xin was to deliver it.
Xin easily caught up with Dr. Ivanova. He planted his foot into the small of her back, stopping her from crawling. He let out a screech then started stomping on the unfortunate doctor. The stomping didn't stop until she completely stopped moving.
Two of the scientists that the beast formally known as General Xin savaged, got up. Their bodies contorted and spasmed. Black oily blood oozed from their wounds and mouths. They screeched.
Xin punched through the glass of the case holding the serum. With the serum in his hands, he left the lab with the two other newly turned behind him.
In the hallways outside the Borroloola Base labs, things were hectic. Kids ran back and forth trying their best to keep the defenders alive to continue the fighting. The lives of everyone depended on them, but the kids themselves couldn't fight. After all, they were just children.
The one formally known as General Xin watched the kids running back and forth before him and the other two creatures for a few seconds. He watched the bite sized meals with legs pass just out of arms reach. Then one got close enough to grab.
Mrs. Meesang was so busy keeping track of the battle below that she almost didn't notice the kids running out of the base screaming and crying. Even from the roof and over the fighting she could hear them. Her attention shied away from the fences and towards those completely terrified innocents.
The infected, led by Xin, burst outdoors. Almost like they couldn't help but announce their presence, they screeched. Then they scattered, each sprinting towards a different group of guards. To make matters worse, kids that were turned sped out of the facility like little bullets lined with teeth and claws.
“Breach!” shouted Mrs. Meesang through the bullhorn. “We have a breach!” She tried to warn her people but it was far too late. They couldn't defend themselves from both the outside and inside. The battle was over.
Meesang was helpless as she watched the nanite virus spread throughout the Phoenix members who could no longer hold up their defenses. Infected easily scaled the fences and the undead crows finished off anyone left in the guard towers.
“M'am! We need to get out of here. Our escape route is about to be cut off.” One of Mrs. Meesang's men tried to get her to flee the roof and the base all together. There was a tunnel that led from the basement to an exit a half a mile away. If they moved fast they might have been able to get there before the infected got to them.
“My husband?”
“Right here!” Yamada was in the doorway to the stairs that led off the roof.
Mrs. Meesang took one last look at her now lost base. She watched as her men and women were massacred by crazed beasts of all kinds. Not able to take the sheer scope of her failure anymore, she turned away and joined her husband and two other men, Phoenix security, into the stairwell off the roof.
The last group of Phoenix survivors descended the stairs as fast as they possibly could. Naturally there were some falls but that was to be expected. Whomever was behind them helped them back up to their feet. There was an unspoken feeling among them that they needed each other to make it through that waking nightmare.
One of the Phoenix security members had Mrs. Meesang and the rest of the group stop at the bottom of the stairs. He slowly opened the door marked with a big “B”. The basement was dimly lit, and from what he could see, the coast was clear.
“All right, let's go,” he said. Right as he opened the door wider, he and everyone else in the group heard screeches echo throughout the stairwell. “Double time!”
Maybe it was a sense of duty or training, but the two Phoenix security members stayed behind as Mrs. Meesang and Yamada ran ahead. The security guys shut the door behind them.
“No! We can all make it!” Mrs. Meesang tried to open the door to the stairwell again. Yamada pulled her back.
“They made their choice. Don't let it be in vain,” said Yamada as he pulled his wife towards the tunnel entrance, which was simply a hole in one of the cinder block walls. She fought but not for long. There wasn't time for drama. At any moment she knew that door was going to burst open and all sorts of death would be spilling through.
As Yamada and Mrs. Meesang entered the tunnel, they could hear the screams of the security men who sacrificed themselves so that they could get away. There were no more barriers. That was the last line of defense. Either the two of them ran as far and fast as possible, or they were dead.
The tunnels were dark, and when they got far enough away from the basement, Meesang and Yamada lost that last bit of light that the room provided. Yamada took out a mini flashlight he kept on his key chain. It was only meant to find door locks in the night. Still, it helped in the pitch black of the underground.
“We can't stop. We need to keep going,” urged Yamada.
Mrs. Meesang started to slow down. She wasn't young. Neither was he. As his knees screamed at him to cease, his mind and heart knew that stopping wasn't an option.
Undead screeches filled the tunnels. The creatures followed Yamada and Mrs. Meesang. There was still a considerable amount of distance to go before the tunnel ended, but both knew that they weren't going to be able to outrun them.
Mrs. Meesang took out her pistol. She checked it to make sure it was loaded and ready to go. She had no intention on using any of the bullets inside on their pursuers.
Yamada looked down the tunnel with his mini flashlight. In the small circle of light he saw infected packed from wall to wall, scraping, clawing and climbing over each other. The creatures all wanted to get to him and his wife to do god knows what.
Before Yamada could say a word, Mrs. Meesang pointed her gun under his chin. She pulled the trigger sending some of his brains and brain matter towards the tunnel ceiling. Tears streamed down her face as she pointed her pistol against her temple.
Mrs. Meesang waited until the last moment before pulling the trigger, killing herself. The infected were seconds away from grabbing her before she sent a forty caliber bullet through her skull and into her gray matter. Doing so spared her from being ravaged and mauled. After all she did to try and protect the Phoenix Borroloola Base, she deserved to be spared from such a fate.
***
The leader of the Alphas walked through the ruins. It passed the butchered bodies of the Phoenix members who so bravely fought and failed to defend their home. It passed by all the nanite infected that were minutes before under it's c
ommand. Done with them, the creatures were released from its control. They ran wild, killing any survivors.
All the leader of the Alphas could think of was how none of the horror was necessary. If the humans had simply cooperated, they'd still be alive. Why were they so stubborn? Didn't they realize that the Alphas were superior? What other outcome did they expect?
The leader of the Alphas stopped and looked down. By it's metal feet it saw the corpse of a child. It didn't know why, but the sight saddened it. There was something unmistakably tragic about the death of such innocence. But guilt? That was something new to the creature. And it didn't like it.
Where was the leader of the Alpha's going? It headed for the main facilities of the Phoenix Borroloola Base. There it was to meet the one formally known as General Xin who had the serum that was so desperately needed.
The two other Alpha's joined their leader as it waited. With intense yellow eyes they watched the other infected go in and out of the building. Patience, it turned out was a very strong trait in them.
Finally the undead General Xin emerged. In his hands were a couple of vials full of what appeared to be serum. It handed them over to the lead Alpha. Disgusted with so much that occurred in the past hour, the leader took Xin's head off with one nonchalant swipe of it's hand.
The lead Alpha was suspicious of the vials. They looked like serum but it wasn't sure. Unfortunately being able to analyze chemicals was not included in the being's many impressive capabilities, so it had to test it.
Take. It handed one of the vials over to the Alpha next to it's left. At first the creature was dubious of injecting the mystery serum into it's body. But it was an omega. It either did what it's leader ordered or it would have to fight, and it knew that there was no winning such a battle.
Take. Now! The leader got more forceful with it's wireless commands. Left without a choice the Alpha to it's left injected the mystery serum into it's body.
At first the mystery serum seemed to work. The nanites that made up the Alpha's body started moving faster. They appeared energized. Shortly after that the first one of them exploded. It was a tiny explosion but was followed by another. All the rest of the nanites, the creature's whole body, was destroyed by hundreds of millions of tiny explosions.
