Greg was usually very laid back, but Brian could sense the tension in his friend. They moved through the hallway of the fifth floor passing several other researchers who gave warm friendly smiles as they walked by. The long white hallway ran down the center of the floor with doors and openings on either side. Fluorescent lights were the only light source on the floor. None of the individual research areas had windows to the outside. This was to protect the secrets that resided on this floor.
Lab 8 was a rather large laboratory located two doors from the end of the hall on the left side. Greg slid his badge over the ID reader, and the red light turned green. The labs were not normally locked, as the researchers on this floor usually worked closely together. Brian had been in this room many times since his promotion, so he wasn’t surprised to see the walls lined with stainless steel shelves holding vials and jars filled with liquids and solids of varying shapes and colors. Instruments and tools were hung neatly in their respective places. All the labs looked fairly similar for the most part.
Walking into Lab 8, Brian could see the stainless-steel table that sat toward the back of the room on a raised section of the floor. The brightly lit room smelled strongly of embalming fluid, and the temperature felt very close to freezing. He knew each lab had its own climate control, but he had no idea that they could reach such a low temperature.
“Grab a climate suit off the rack. I have the temperature set just below four degrees centigrade,” Greg politely ordered as he donned his own climate suit and led the way into the lab.
Brian followed Greg as they walked up the ramp to the raised platform. The figure on the table took his breath away. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“What’s going on here?” he asked in a demanding voice. “Is this either ethical or legal?”
Brian looked down at the child lying on the table. The child’s fingers tightened and relaxed as if grabbing for something that wasn’t there. There was twitching in his legs and arms, and his head rocked back and forth. Part of the skull showed through on the right side of his forehead. The blood had been cleaned up, yet the wound had not healed at all. There were similar scrapes and gashes visible on other parts of his body.
The boy’s skin was blue gray in color, and, aside from the wounds, there was massive bruising in multiple spots. A small cloth covered the area from his lower abdomen to just above his knees. The wounds were still open but had stopped bleeding. Brian’s first instinct was to check for a pulse, but he was shocked by how cold the boy’s body was. Brian knew that at this temperature the heart could beat so slowly it wouldn’t be palpable anyways.
“The subject is roughly a hundred and twenty-seven centimeters tall, weighing about 25 kilos.” Greg could sense Brian’s displeasure. “I assure you the boy is not alive, Brian. I know how this seems, and I feel terrible for the tragic loss of his life.” The melancholy could be heard in Greg’s voice as he spoke. “The boy died a few days ago. He was hit by a car, and his body was donated to our research.”
“Can a child’s body be donated for research?” Brian asked with shock. Even as a scientist he would want his child to rest peacefully.
“Oh, I’m sure they can be. Besides, this body was donated by the parents. Both of which want him to be able to help the world,” he added quickly looking into Brian’s face.
Brian thought he caught a glimpse of that fake smile yet again, and he felt his friend wasn’t being completely honest. He chose to ignore these instincts, however. There was a feeling that it was all in his head, and that he was letting his emotions take control of his senses. Brian’s attention was drawn back to the child as his cold body twitched.
“What’s causing the movement in the body? He’s been deceased too long to twitch like that.” Brian was having a hard time looking at the child. He’d seen many disgusting things in his career, but nothing made his stomach churn like seeing this small boy’s dead body lying on this cold metal table.
“I’ve injected the brain with a chemical we’ve been working on for a while now. You know the one. After all, you developed it.” Greg believed Brian would be pleased to hear this, yet Brian didn’t appear to be.
“And it’s actually causing this? It hasn’t even been lab tested for stability. How did you gain authorization to use it?”
The look on Greg’s face explained everything. No one else in the facility knew about it. This was top secret research because it was never authorized by the board of directors. They were the only group other than the few researchers on this floor that had any idea about what happened here.
“If this is not authorized then how did you come across this body?”
Greg turned his back to Brian and grabbed a hypodermic needle and a vial half full of the clear liquid that Brian recognized as a chemical mixture he had been working on.
“This was designed to trigger the regrowth of living tissue cells. The beginning to the process of limb regrowth for wounded soldiers. Why would you assume that it would work on a cadaver?”
“It has to work,” Greg replied with determination in his voice.
Brian grew continuously more puzzled by Greg’s behavior. He stood by his friend, however, and continued to lend his knowledge when needed. The two men worked through the afternoon. The sun was just setting as Brian walked out into the parking lot and climbed in his car. He sat there for fifteen minutes and waited to see if Greg would part from his research. Brian realized Greg would continue to work throughout the night. He decided to head home and enjoy the rest of the evening with his family before they departed for their flight to Iowa in the morning.
Three days had passed, and Brian felt exhausted. Their research had them working later and later each night. They were also gaining ground. Each day the boy would move more and more, yet his tissue would never regenerate. New calculations would be made to the formula, and the body would be flushed so the new mixture could be tried.
As Brian showed up for work one morning, Greg was overjoyed. He couldn’t wait to show Brian the most recent developments. Brian followed faithfully to Lab 8. Nothing seemed different. The boy was lying where he had been with no apparent changes.
“What are you so happy about?” Brian asked with a smile of his own. He was thrilled to see his friend in such high spirits once again. Over the days, Brian had found that he too had become more excited about what they were doing.
“Don’t you see?” Greg failed at containing his excitement. His voice cracked slightly as he spoke.
“I see nothing new,” Brian examined the body.
“The body has stopped decomposing completely. His cells are showing signs of activity. He isn’t regenerating, but I think we may have moved his body away from a dead state. He is completely neutral, not dead, and not alive.”
“This is amazing news,” Brian exclaimed with pleasure as he walked around the table. “We have to take this to the board. They’ll be blown away.”
As he reached into the drawer to grab a scalpel to scrape a fresh skin sample from the body, he noticed a sheet of paper tucked away inside. The words “Missing Child” practically jumped off the page. He pulled the paper out and unfolded it. The boy was named Samuel Kinsler, a nine-year old who had been missing for almost three weeks. The picture was that of the body in the lab, and he had lived on the same street as Greg.
Brian could feel the blood drain from his face. He felt as though he had seen a ghost, and he turned to Greg and asked, “What is this?”
“I wanted to tell you Brian, but I didn’t want you to know enough to bring trouble to you. I’m sorry. His name was Sam. He lived next door to me. Such a wonderful child. All I wanted was to bring him back to apologize.”
“What have you done? You killed this boy and brought him here?” The rage boiled inside Brian uncontrollably. “You killed this boy!”
“I hit him with my car, Brian. I’m so sorry. I didn’t see him. The only thing I could do was bring him here.” Greg’s eyes looked as though they had liquefi
ed from the amount of tears that pooled under them.
Brian’s fist collided with the left side of Greg’s face with enough force to loosen two of his teeth. Greg never raised a hand in defense. He tried to remain standing as Brian hit him again and again. Blood poured from his mouth as well as from the gashes in his face that were created by the enraged Brian.
“You killed someone’s little boy, you bastard!” Brian screamed through tears and sobs of his own. “Then you bring him here? We have been testing drugs on a child you murdered and brought into this lab unauthorized? I can only imagine how devastated his parents are. We have to tell them! They need closure!”
Greg lay there weeping on the floor as the punches stopped. Most of the blood was his own, yet blood dripped from Brian’s bruised knuckles as well. Brian’s breath came in forced gasps as he tried to regulate his breathing so he wouldn’t pass out. The beaten man looked up at him through his swollen face and gave his companion an understanding nod.
“Let me grab a first aid kit,” Brian said, the anger leaving his body. He walked toward the entrance of the lab where the first aid kits were mounted on the wall.
After pulling one of the med kits down, Brian turned to walk back and looked toward the empty table. His head cocked to the left as he was struck with confusion. The boy wasn’t there. Greg could be seen propping himself up on an elbow, but the boy was nowhere.
“Where’s the boy?” Brian asked.
“I can’t see much, so I’m not sure what you mean.” Greg spit blood from his mouth as he tried to speak.
“The boy is gone, Greg. He’s not on the table.”
“Perhaps we knocked him down while you were beating the shit out of me,” Greg mumbled through his swollen lips.
“He’s not on the floor. Maybe I should call security.” Brian’s heart began to pound wildly.
“Yeah, ok. Then I’m having them kick your ass.” Greg managed with a pained laugh.
“This is no time for joking, Greg. Seriously, our body is fucking gone.” The fear was audible in his voice.
Brian stepped back toward the wall slowly and pressed the call button with his left hand. As the security officer answered, he told him they needed assistance. He opened the lab door and looked out to see two men in dark blue suits walking down the hall toward them. He gave them a wave and stepped back into the lab to take care of Greg’s wounds.
Before Brian reached the ramp to the platform the boy appeared standing over Greg. Brian froze in place. The boy looked exactly as he had for the past few days. There was very little color remaining in his eyes. Greg looked up at the boy, the terror clearly visible on his swollen face. This look was soon washed away by relief as he was able to look at the boy and say, “I’m sorry, Sam.”
The small boy lunged at Greg while letting out a terrifying shriek. The fingers on both hands entered into Greg’s throat and he pulled outwards. Greg’s scream changed tone as his larynx was torn apart. Blood sprayed over the boy’s body. Holding open Greg’s neck, Sam bit down into his throat, pulling out the esophagus. As Sam stood up to his full height, Greg’s esophagus hung from his mouth like a soft, wet rope.
“What the fuck?” The voice came as a shock to Brian, who turned and saw both security officers standing open-mouthed next to him. Brian recognized the taller of the two as a middle-aged man named Henry. He’d been with the company far longer than Brian had. The other officer, a younger man named Tim, Brian knew from his earlier days with the company.
Henry pulled his stun gun from its small belt holster and aimed it at the boy. Tim soon followed by pulling out his own stun gun and stepped off toward the left of the raised platform. Security had handguns, but they never had a reason to use them. Carrying stun guns was completely pointless up on the fifth floor. First floor security stunned the occasion trespasser, but nothing ever happened higher up.
“Son, you need to step away from the man and place your hands on that table right there,” Henry commanded in a smooth southern drawl.
Sam looked between the three of them and let out another terrible shriek. The electrodes from Tim’s stun gun pierced the almost colorless skin of the boy’s chest causing him to shake violently for a brief moment. He quickly recovered and charged at Tim. The second set of electrodes hit the boy in his right side. Only this time the effect was much briefer.
“Run and grab one of the guns out of the closet, quickly now!” Henry shouted the order to Tim who turned and ran from the room in a dead sprint. “Dr. Sawyer, you need to get behind me if you would please, and slowly back toward the door.”
Sam shrieked once more and began to move toward them. His movement was slower than it originally looked when there was less ground to cover, but he could still move quickly. Damage to the muscle tissue was evident in the way he moved. All the commotion was beginning to attract the attention of the other researchers on the floor, and despite the researchers being highly educated, they were still human enough to flock to danger.
Henry stepped forward to grab the boy to detain him. Sam bit into Henry’s arm and began to claw at his chest. At that exact moment, Henry let out a scream and the door to the lab closed. Tim had hit the alarm before making his way back. The alarm on the fifth floor, as Brian remembered, wasn’t like the alarm on any other floor. It put the entire building into lockdown to prevent top secret information from being stolen.
Brian turned to see who all was locked in here with him in hopes of one of them having the technical skills to open the door. Henry’s screams continued to fill the room as Brian looked to each of the four researchers that had the misfortune of stepping too far into this particular room.
“Lawrence. Do you have the authorization to open the doors in an emergency?” Keith Lawrence stood there terrified. He was the Network Security Technician and one of the only non-research employees with access to this floor. He picked a bad day to do preventative maintenance on the lab computers.
“I’ll try,” Lawrence said, turned toward the control panel for the door and grabbed his keycard.
Brian turned to help Henry when he noticed the fifth man standing with the group. His head resting perfectly on his right shoulder. Blood poured down the front of his climate suit. Greg lifted his head up, his eyes gray and dull. He turned to the terrified woman standing next to him and plunged a finger deep into her eye socket. Pulling her close, he dug his teeth into the side of her face and ripped away a chunk of her cheek. Retracting his finger from her eye, he placed both hands in her open mouth and pried her jaw apart.
The remaining members of the group ran in every direction despite having nowhere to run to. Henry’s screams had stopped, but the woman’s still dominated the atmosphere. As one of the researchers ran past Henry’s body toward the back of the room, Sam grabbed his ankle and dug his fingernails deep into the calf muscle. The man fell to his side and tried to pull his leg free; however, Sam had removed most of the flesh and muscle, revealing the bone underneath.
Henry sat up stiffly. Most of his arm had been torn apart and several fingers were chewed down to the bone. Standing up, he made his move toward Brian, who found that he was able to outmaneuver him easily enough.
“I got it!” Lawrence shouted as the door slid open. The rest of the researchers were standing in the hallway trying to figure out what was causing all the chaos that seemed to envelope their friends and coworkers inside the Lab 8.
Tim stepped through the door and aimed the pistol around the room. “What do I shoot at? Who do I shoot at?” he yelled in confusion, never thinking he’d experience real danger in a research laboratory.
“Just keep Lawrence safe!” Brian shouted in return. “Lawrence, can you override the locks on the rest of the building and get everyone to safety?”
“Anything to get the hell out of here!” he replied as he sprang through the door behind Tim.
Two shots rang out as Greg turned from his victim toward Tim. Each bullet hit him in the chest tearing holes in the flesh. Greg moved forward as
if he hadn’t noticed. Tim fired another two shots into Greg’s chest. Again, no effect. Tim fired the fifth shot into Greg’s head, causing him to drop to the floor.
Before Tim could celebrate, or share his success, the pain burned through his right shoulder like lightning scorching the earth where it strikes. Henry had bitten him in the shoulder and was now violently pulling on his arm. Weakened by the pain, Tim fell to the ground. Henry continued to pull on his arm. From the left came the woman. Her eye was missing, and her bottom jaw hung down, held in place by the flesh on her right cheek. She grabbed Tim’s other arm and began to pull in her direction.
Tim clamped his teeth together in an attempt to not scream as his right arm was pulled off of his body by Henry. The bones cracked and crunched as they broke, flesh and arteries tore, spraying blood in all directions as the arm came off. As Tim came free of Henry, the woman dropped to her knees and dug her hands into Tim’s stomach with deep scratches. His spleen was ripped out of his abdomen. Death silenced his cries.
Seeing no way out through the turmoil, Brian slid under one of the counters along the wall and pried open the vent by pushing off of the wall with his feet. He felt awful about leaving his coworkers, but he didn’t see any way to win this fight. Climbing in feet first, he closed the vent behind him. Brian was able to turn around as he came to a T-intersection in the ventilation system. From there he climbed up and over the fifth floor.
Through the vents, he could see that each one of his injured coworkers was moving around, attacking other researchers. Lawrence was unable to override the security for the elevator, yet he did open the security door that led to the stairwell. Blood covered the walls in the hallway. Brian quickly realized this was indeed a bad thing. Lawrence could ultimately lead them out of the building.
Taking a few minutes to gather his thoughts, he came to the conclusion that they must have created a virus. Each person that was attacked in most cases should have died, yet they managed to survive only to become an attacker themselves.
“The formula survives independently and replicates itself as it is spread to a new host,” he said to himself quietly. “That doesn’t explain why they are so violent though. There must be a way to stop this.”
Decay | Book 1 | Civilization Page 4
