Eaters: Resurrection

by Michelle DePaepe

  There would be so much to work out if Jeremiah’s cure for the infection became widely available. The whole idea would still seem like a fantasy if she hadn’t seen the results of Jeremiah’s antidote for herself. Without seeing it with her own eyes, no one could have convinced her that such a thing was even possible. Actually, the whole concept of bringing a dead person back to life still seemed crazy. Maybe Cassie hadn’t been—

  “Wuhhh…wuhmai.”

  She jumped backwards as the man in the bed started moaning and twisting from side to side. She edged further away from him as he pulled at the leather straps that held his wrists and tried to lift himself upright. When he couldn’t free himself, he shook the bed violently.

  “Wuhrmai…wurhmai?”

  His head rolled towards her, and he seemed to stare at her with his filmy eyes. The sight gave her a chill and she backed up further, wanting to leave. He repeated the sounds, but this time they sounded clearer and more desperate.

  “Wuhrmai? Wur…mmm…I?”

  She realized they weren’t just random sounds—he was talking to her and it sounded like he was asking, ‘Where am I?’

  “It’s going to be okay,” she told him. “I’m going to go get…” She headed towards the door, her heart thumping in her chest at the idea that she’d just witnessed this man’s return to consciousness. It was exhilarating and frightening at the same time.

  Running down the hall towards Jeremiah’s office, she felt that familiar surge of anger welling up inside her. How could O.N.E. have caused so much misery in the world and then suppress the antidote that could give life back to the people who had lost it. She cursed them and imagined burning the whole damn XCGEN building down to the ground.

  When she reached the office, she found the door open. There was a man inside, another scientist by the looks of his snappy white coat and name badge. He was using a tape gun to seal up a box.

  In a breathless voice, she asked, “Have you seen Jeremiah?”

  “He was called away a few minutes ago.”

  “Called where?”

  “I don’t know, but he bailed on me right when we got the order to get this stuff ready to go.”

  Stuff? She looked at the boxes in front of him. In black marker, they were marked: CS23.

  CS…CS…Cyclops Serum? She didn’t bother asking him to confirm it; she knew that’s what it was. A prickle of heat flushed to her cheeks. The serum…the man was boxing it up, getting it ready to distribute. Time had run out to produce the antidote and get it to the people before they were injected with the slave-mind chemical.

  She had to find Jeremiah, now for much more than the news that a patient was reviving. She had to know when he was going to have more of the antidote ready. There was no more time!

  After trying to get more information from the scientist about where Jeremiah had gone and getting nothing but a sigh as he fought with the uncooperative tape gun, she went back to the hallway. She paced for a few seconds then sat down on a bench to figure out her next move. Her head was buried in her hands when she heard the sound of squealing wheels and looked up. An elderly man with curly silver hair pushed a cleaning cart in her direction. He stopped and squeezed the dirty water from his mop then swapped the floor around a trash can

  There was something peculiar about him, and she wondered for a moment if he was one of the many Reanimated Assistants working in the XCGen building.

  After studying him for a few more seconds, she decided that the man was clearly alive even if his movements were slow and jerky. It was almost as if he was pretending to be one of the helpful undead. When he neared her, she raised her feet, so he could mop around the bench.

  “Cheryl Malone?” his voice croaked in a low whisper.

  She nodded.

  “This is for the memory of Hannah, Kai, and Jordan.”

  He reached into the cart and handed her a roll of paper towels. She took it from him and noted its excess weight. Although it looked like a standard roll of paper with a hollow core, it clearly contained something else hidden within its paper sheets.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “See you ‘round…” He gave her a two finger salute and continued pushing the cart down the hall, humming as he went.

  She tucked the roll under her arm and made her way to the elevator. When she got back to her dorm room, she didn’t try to hide the roll. Instead, she placed it on the table next to her bunk in plain view. None of her bunkmates were there, so she sat there and stared at her new acquisition, momentarily forgetting about the man who was waking up on the forty-second floor and finding Jeremiah. Curiosity prompted her to unravel the paper and see what was inside, but she stifled the urge. She knew what was inside. The roll contained dozens of tiny vials of the antidote—dozens of miracles for the infected who might still have a second chance at life. When would somebody from the RT come for it? Didn’t they know they were too late once that shipment of CS23 boxes left the building? She could almost hear the giant clock ticking inside her head.

  Misty, one of the other new trainers came in and climbed up to the top bunk. Cheryl avoided looking at the paper towel roll as Misty recanted her afternoon date with a guy she’d met in the cafeteria. Her skin began to feel clammy as the new prop suddenly didn’t seem as unnoticeable as it had when she had first placed it on the table.

  “Then…he had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to—” Misty stopped talking for a second then leaned her head over the bunk. “What is that sound? Is that gunfire?”

  Cheryl listened. She heard nothing at first. Then, there was a peppering of reports that sounded like they were coming from the floor above them. “Yes…” Cheryl said, unable to keep herself from grinning. “I think it is.” She got up and rushed towards the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see if it’s time.”

  “Time for what?” Misty called after her.

  But, Cheryl was already out the door. She bypassed the elevator and headed for the stairs. The what ifs came rapid fire as she climbed. What if it wasn’t the RT? What if it was just one O.N.E. firing on some rogue Beasts that had gone offline from their Reanimated Assistant training? What if—

  The staccato of gunfire multiplied. It sounded like it was coming from above her and from the floor she just left. She could hear shouting and the sound of an alarm wailing from somewhere in the building.

  Something big was going down.

  She approached the door to the next floor gingerly. Heavy footsteps ran past it when she reached for the handle. She hesitated, wondering what the heck she was doing. Was she trying to get herself killed?

  Of course not. She just needed to find out what was going on.

  Summoning a new dose of bravery, she inched the door open. Seeing no one in the hall, she ran to an alcove near the elevators and huddled against the wall. The gunfire seemed to be receding and another sound grew in prominence. It was a cacophony of voices. She couldn’t make out anything they were saying though the group was growing louder by the second. When she realized she was on the floor where many of the incoming Beasts and trained Reanimated Assistants were housed, the source of the din became horrifyingly apparent.

  They were closer now. It sounded like ten, fifteen, maybe more headed her way. They were moaning, gurgling, and dragging towards her like an approaching wall of death. Before she could decide her next move, the first few appeared the corner. There was a tall, skeletal man with droopy, opaque eyes; an older woman with a poof of white hair and a clown-like pasting of makeup; and a petite waif with a birdlike figure and a vicious snarl. Each of them had a dark, bloody, rectangular patch on their scalps—they’re EM boxes were gone, so they’d reverted to ravenous monsters.

  Having missed her last second of opportunity to head back to the stairs, she backed away from them and headed towards the rapport of gunfire. Walking quickly, she took a right down one hallway and a left down the next. Around the next corner, she nearly bumped into the backside of a man in
camouflage holding a gun. The brown-haired, sturdily built man turned around and pointed his rifle at her. She raised her hands in the air. “Don’t shoot! I’m—”

  His blue eyes narrowed, and his forehead creased. “Cheryl Malone?”

  “Yes. How did you—”

  “Zach said to look for a woman with your description who’d come running towards the gunfire instead of away from it. Here…take this.” He handed her one of the two AR-15s that were slung over his shoulder.

  She lowered her hands and took it. “What’s happening?”

  “We’re split into eighteen groups scattered throughout the building. The group ahead of me was deactivating EM boxes on the RA’s when a couple of O.N.E. thugs surprised them. They’re retreating now, and we’re trying to corner them. I hung back as backup.”

  “There’s a group of infected coming this way,” she said, telling him what he could probably already hear for himself.

  “I know. Help me lure them into the lounge.” He pointed at a room down the hall. “We let them loose hoping to cause some chaos, but they’re a danger to us now. We need to corral them and kill as few as possible.”

  “In case—”

  “Yeah. In case we can bring any of ‘em back.”

  Deciding to trust him, she ran with him to the door and waited. It was just a few seconds before the mass of rotting flesh appeared. They shambled into the lounge, leaving the door open behind them. Cheryl frantically searched for a way out on the other side of the room and found no doors or windows. “What do we do?”

  “Head to the back. When they come through the middle aisle between the tables, run around to the side towards the door.”

  She didn’t like it. It was a pass or fail plan, and she felt like a sucker for trusting this stranger, even if he did get brownie points for being a brave member of the resistance. Despite her reservations, the plan worked perfectly. She was able to scoot past the hungry, but slow moving group as they stumbled through the maze of tables and chairs. Seconds later, they were back in the hall, and the crowd that had been following them was locked inside the lounge.

  There was a squawk on her companion’s headset “Okay…this floor is secure. Now, we need to get Jeremiah and the other sympathetic scientists out of the building, alive.”

  Jeremiah. She suddenly remembered something very important. “I’ve got some of the antidote vials.”

  His face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. “Where?”

  “Back in my room.”

  He opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by another squawk. He spoke into the microphone. “What?” He nodded as if the person on the other end could see him. “On my way… “ He looked back to Cheryl. “They need help on the top floor. I gotta go. Get those vials and meet us up top!”

  They both rushed to the staircase. He started running up the first of many flights, and she called up to him. “Hey…what’ your name?”

  “Logan.”

  He disappeared above her, and she scurried to the staircase to head back down.

  Back in the trainers’ dormitory, Misty was nowhere in sight. She didn’t see the paper towel roll on the table and started to panic. After a frantic search, she found it on the floor under the bed where it must have rolled after Misty knocked it off. She grabbed a tote bag from the bedpost, threw the roll inside and ran back towards the stairs.

  She stuck to the staircase, because she figured it was the best choice and maybe the only choice. Logan had used the stairs to go up to the top floor, and that may have been because the elevators had been shut down at the first sign of a security breech, or it was just a safer way to get up there and avoid being surprised by O.N.E. soldiers.

  Cheryl had never thought of herself as claustrophobic, but even with the adrenaline pumping through her, there was an undeniable concern about being trapped in the narrow space as she began to climb. Out of breath, she paused after the first few flights. People streamed past her, screaming, yelling, arms flailing as they went down. Were they panicked because of the armed resistance invasion? Because of the battle going on with O.N.E.’s security forces? Beasts on the loose? Or, all of the above? She realized she was a crazy woman to continue heading up when everyone else was fleeing the building. Crazy…maybe…but the RT likely needed all the firepower they could get if they were going to have any chance against One New Earth’s might.

  She kept going up the endless stairs as it seemed to take forever to reach the top floor of the building. When she reached the door to the 56th floor, she saw a pair of bolt cutters and a heavy chain coiled on the concrete next to them. In their determination to literally get to the very top of the XCGen building and O.N.E.’s hierarchy, the group from the RT had apparently been prepared.

  Exhausted from her trek, she flung an arm over the railing and rested while listening to the gunfire on the other side of the door. After catching her breath, she pushed the bar on the door, shoved it open and poked the barrel of her gun through, followed by her head.

  She was prepared to be fired at by O.N.E. soldiers; she was prepared to meet up with Logan and the other RT members in his group, but she wasn’t prepared to see Aidan standing there, blocking her way.

  Chapter 22

  “They’re idiots! They shouldn’t have gone in there. I told them not to.”

  “Get out of my way,” she said, trying to shove past him.

  He grabbed her arm. “What do you think you’re going to do?

  “I’m going to help take Marshall down.”

  “It’s too late. They’re all dead.”

  She stared into his emerald eye, avoiding the cold electronic orb. “What are you talking about?” She could hear gunfire coming from Marshall’s inner office—someone was still alive in there.

  “Do you think he left any of his security to chance? There are Beasts in the walls, and the room is booby trapped with gas.”

  “Then, I need to warn them, help them!”

  “Don’t,” he said, gripping her tighter.

  “Damn, you Aidan…let me go!”

  “No.”

  “I’m going!”

  “I don’t want you to go in there…” I love you. I don’t want you to die.

  What? He didn’t say the last words out loud. She’d heard them in her head. Were they really his words, or were they part of his programming? Maybe, it was the Cyclops serum talking, trying to stall her from aiding the resistance. She yanked her arm away and ran towards Marshall’s office.

  The gunfire had stopped; the door was open, and she could hear scuffling feet, grunts, moans, and chaotic shouting inside. She entered the reception area and saw the receptionist sprawled on the floor like a dead China doll. Her EM box was a few feet away, and a pool of blackish blood surrounded her head. There were other bodies too, several O.N.E. soldiers who’d apparently lost a gun fight, despite their weapons and protective gear.

  She continued down the long hallway that led to Marshall’s secluded office. Amongst the shouting voices, she recognized Zach’s deep timber and the voice of another man that sounded like Logan. Her hands shook as she gripped the gun tighter, unsure of what was going on. She stopped at entrance to the office.

  Logan, Zach, Diego, and nearly a dozen men and women stood there arguing amongst themselves. The debate was heated, and Cheryl realized that they hadn’t found Luke Marshall which was causing a quarrel about what to do next. While they fought, she surveyed the damage in the room.

  The walls were splintered with bullet holes. The group had known or had guessed there were Reanimated Assistants hidden within the panels and had aimed high, arcing the spray five to six feet high to hit every one in square in the head. She could hear the gurgling and grunts of a few that were still in the process of expiring from their wounds. In the past, she’d have been pleased to hear such sounds, because it meant fewer Eaters on the planet to attack her…but now…knowing that she hadn’t been in immediate danger from them and some of them could have been resurrected…her
feelings were mixed.

  She was waiting for someone to notice her standing there and a chance to break into the conversation when she heard a loud wail to her side followed by the sound of splintering wood. A bloody figure emerged from the cracked paneling. He fell out of the wall with a bloodcurdling scream, and it took a second for Cheryl and the others to realize that the injured man with red streaks dripping down his face was Luke Marshall. Instead of activating his security defenses and standing his ground against the RT invasion, he had hidden behind the panels like a scared rat.

  When Marshall saw the guns aimed at him, he raised his hands in the air and stumbled backwards.

  The woman standing next to Cheryl cocked the trigger on her pistol.

  “No!” Logan said. “We agreed to take him alive.”

  “I want retribution!” the women snarled.

  Logan smacked her gun downwards just as she fired.

  Startled by the shot, Marshall’s feet wobbled and he swerved to the left. He ran a few yards towards the long, narrow hallway then his legs tangled together and he fell towards the window. His body smacked against the glass which had been cracked by a few stray bullets. It shattered and Marshall tumbled through. He fell, screaming…fifty-six floors to the ground below. They all ran to the window and looked down at his body sprawled on the sidewalk.