When Dragon stepped up beside him and took Axl’s arm, Helen frowned. “He’s going to need help,” Dragon told her.
Helen pressed her lips together, but it only took a moment for her to nod. “Fine,” she snapped, and then turned to the guard who had let us in. “Lead them back the way we came and make sure they get out of here safely.”
The guard nodded and headed for the door.
Mom took one step after him before stopping and turning to face me. Her eyes swam with worry and pain and so many other emotions I couldn’t name them all, but she looked more like herself. Like the strong woman who had raised me.
“Be careful.” She had one arm around Margot and my sister was leaning on her like she couldn’t stand, but Mom used the other one to give me a half hug.
I swallowed and pushed the images of my sister being tortured and writhing in pain from my mind. “I will.”
Mom squeezed me so hard that it felt like my ribs would snap. “I love you, Megan.”
“I love you,” I replied.
I stepped back when she released me, but not before grabbing my sister’s hand and giving it a squeeze. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing and instead allowed Mom to pull her away.
Next to me Dragon and Helen were saying their own goodbyes, but when I stopped at my boss’s side it was my unconscious father I was focused on.
“Hang in there, Daddy,” I whispered as I kissed his temple. I hadn’t called him Daddy in probably fifteen years, but at that moment I felt overwhelmed by the memories of my childhood. By the images of this man playing with me, tickling me, making me laugh.
“Be careful,” Dragon said to Helen.
“I will,” she replied.
The kiss she gave him was quick but full of feeling, and then he was off, supporting Dad as he followed the rest of my family down the hall and hopefully to safety.
Chapter Seventeen
Meg
Before the others had even disappeared from view, Angus charged into the room we’d just freed Dad from. Through the window the rest of us watched in tense silence as he rummaged through an old bookshelf. It only took seconds for him to find what he needed, and when he came back into the hall he was holding a book of crossword puzzles. He frowned as he flipped through it; his gaze so focused on the book that he seemed to forget anyone else was around. He turned page after page until he was near the back of the book, and then he froze as if mesmerized by whatever was written there.
He snapped out of it fast though, and then he was heading back into the cell with his thumb stuck between the pages, muttering, “Need a pen.”
“Angus,” Jada called. “We need to hurry.”
“I’m doin’ what I can,” he responded.
When he sat down at the table, the tattooed woman let out a huff and went into the room. I did too, feeling suddenly compelled to find out what was happening. He was flipping through the pages again, stopping every now and then so he could jot a number down on his arm. When I leaned forward and got a better look at the pages, I saw that most of the puzzles were filled in, but not with answers. With names. Axl. Vivian. Emily. Hadley. Jon. Rambo. Megan. Jane. Baby. Father. Daughter. It looked like the ranting of a mad man, but to Angus there seemed to be a pattern.
“What are you looking for?” I asked when he jotted the number five down on his arm, and then flipped the page again. It was the seventh number, and he was still searching.
“See here—” He pointed to eight down where the word Jane had been filled in. “Every time I wrote her name it’s a number in the code. I just gotta find ‘em all.”
“It’s genius,” I said, marveling at the way he was able to hide something so important in a book that looked like nothing but nonsense.
“I knew I wouldn’t be able to remember it forever, so I hid it.” Angus nodded twice and flipped to the last puzzle in the book. There the name Jane was written in three across.
He shut the book after he’d scribbled the final number on his arm, and then got to his feet, but he didn’t leave it behind. Instead, he folded the book in half and shoved it in his back pocket. I couldn’t believe he wanted to keep it. It must have held some horrible memories, years and years of sitting here as a prisoner, of living a hopeless and miserable existence. Why would he want to remember that?
“Let’s go,” he said as he headed for the door.
I found Donaghy in the hall, just past Dad’s former cell. He was leaning against the wall, barely able to stand, but when I went to help him he waved me off.
“Look,” he said, waving to the cell at his back.
I looked through the window, but the sight I was met with forced me to take a step back. Matt. He was a zombie now, a hybrid zombie who was pale and calculating and totally hairless, but I’d recognize the member of my crew anywhere. He’d gone missing after sitting down to talk to me about my dad’s disappearance and I’d known something bad must have happened to him, but this?
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“I saw him when I was brought in.” Donaghy pushed himself off the wall and stood. “Do you want to put him out of his misery?”
“We have to leave!” Jada called.
I did want to put him out of his misery. I wanted to open the door and shoot him and make sure he wasn’t trapped inside the head of that creature, but not only was it a risk—the hybrid zombies were fast and calculating—I also knew there was no time.
“The bacteria will do it for me when we release it,” I said, shaking my head. “We have to focus on that.”
“Okay.” Donaghy grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the cell, but I had a hard time tearing my gaze from the calculating eyes that followed us.
Everyone else in our group was already on their way down the hall when we hurried after them. We caught up in seconds, and then moved through the CDC in much the same way as we had before, this time with Helen and Parv taking the lead. Donaghy and I were somewhere in the middle of the group, each of us armed but safely tucked in among the others just in case we ran into trouble and he lacked the energy to fight. I couldn’t help thinking of the rest of my family as I went, praying they’d made it out and were on their way to safety. Dragon was with them, which made me feel better, but I wouldn’t be able to relax until we were all in Senoia and together once again.
We stayed in the main halls of the CDC until we reached a locked door. There we paused just long enough for Helen to type a code in, and then it was pulled open to reveal stairs that descended into near darkness.
We plunged into the black abyss, not saying a word. The stairwell was unlit except for the red lights that signaled each landing, and the glow from their crimson bulbs was almost foreboding, shining down on the stairs as they wound around and around, descending deeper and deeper into the belly of the CDC. We ran at a brisk pace that seemed to defy the seriousness of the situation rather than highlight it. Our footsteps echoed through the empty stairwell as we moved, making me jumpy with the knowledge that we were creating a lot of noise. Too much noise. By now, everyone had to know we were in the CDC and they were probably looking for us. Jackson, his father, all the sick bastards who worked day and night to mutate viruses in an attempt to take over the world. They had guards who lived and worked in this building, their sole purpose to protect the secrets held here.
We passed two doors before Helen stopped. The third was steel and yet another keypad was mounted on the wall at its side. The rest of us could barely hold still as we waited for Helen to type the number in once again. I held my breath, wondering when luck would run out and the code she had would no longer work. She couldn’t have access to the entire CDC, could she? Even if she did, it was entirely possible that Jackson or his father would disable her code when they realized she was here.
“What if your code doesn’t work?” I asked as Helen jammed her finger against the numbers mounted on the keypad.
“This isn’t my code.” She glanced over her shoulder, her gaze focused on Angus, not
me. “Jane left me a note in case things went south. In it she told me about the failsafe, but she didn’t tell me how to find it. She told me that Angus knew all the details and that if I wanted to save the world, I would have to rescue him from the CDC.” She punched the enter button on the keypad and the door clicked open. “She also gave me Star’s security code so I could access everything when the time came.”
She turned back to face the open door, charging through like a woman on a mission, which was exactly what she was. The rest of us followed, bursting out of the stairwell and into the hall, and coming face-to-face with the door that lead into Biosafety Level four.
The hall we were standing in was just as white and sterile as every other one we’d passed, and it seemed to stretch on for what felt like forever on both sides. I had no idea where these halls went or if there was another stairwell that led to this level, but standing here made me feel like I was surrounded, especially with the door in front of us screaming at me to turn away.
It was plastered with warnings, all of them declaring that only authorized personal were allowed to enter and cautioning anyone who passed through that the room held certain death. The door had a small window in the center, allowing us a view of the inside. It looked like a locker room for the most part, with a few lockers on the wall and benches mounted in front of them. Only the bulky plastic suits destroyed the illusion. They were hanging on the wall, ready and waiting for some fool to step inside and put them on, and the very sight of them sent a shudder shooting through me. Suddenly, I was very thankful that I wasn’t the one who was about to step into this room.
“This is it,” Helen said as she pressed her fingers against the numbers.
Angus stood at her side, his arm out so she could read the numbers written there, and with every beep I started to sweat even more. The door let out a hiss when it popped open and Angus took a step back, almost like he was afraid he’d catch some thing if he stood too close.
Helen didn’t step through right away, but instead turned to face us. “Parv and I are going in. Everyone else, stay out here and make sure no one bothers us.”
No one spoke, but like me everyone nodded in agreement. The tension was thick, the mood somewhere between grim and anxious. I’d only just met most of the people with me, but the others were my family. My uncle Al, Luke, and Parv. Donaghy. Losing any of these people would be devastating, and I knew that standing in this hall outside the door of Biosafety Level four, we were sitting ducks. If anyone came running out of that stairwell or down one of these halls, we would have nowhere to hide.
Helen took a deep breath and stepped through the door. Parv was behind her, just inches away from safety when the gunshot cut through the air and she went down in a burst of red and screams.
I ducked, as did everyone around me, trying to take cover from an unknown assailant. My aunt was on the floor, just outside the open door, and I twisted my body so it was around hers, blocking her as if I were a shield instead of a person who was just as vulnerable as she was. She was bleeding from her shoulder, her dark shirt already saturated with blood, and there was red dotted across her neck and face. Helen was already through the door, crouching down and staring back at us as if trying to decide what to do. I covered my aunt’s shoulder with shaky hands, wanting to stop the bleeding, to make sure she got through this alive, while at my back a group of soldiers rushed toward us.
All around me the people in my group had their guns up. Luke and Jim and Jada fired, Angus too. Donaghy had his body draped over me just like I had done with my aunt, and the heat emanating from him was stifling. I focused on Parv though, trying to block out the soldiers rushing toward us and the fever raging through Donaghy. Trying to help her even though my body was trembling.
Parv groaned and tried to push me away when I pressed my hands more firmly against her wound. “Megan, you need to go.” She seemed to have super human strength when she shoved Donaghy and me off her. I lost my balance and nearly fell getting up, but that didn’t stop her from giving me another push. “Help Helen.”
I didn’t want to leave her, didn’t want to go in the room of death and be cut off from what was happening, but I knew she was right, and before I could think twice I found myself moving. Gunshots burst through the air around me, but in seconds I was falling through the door and Helen had slammed it shut, cutting us off from the chaos in the hall.
She grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet, her hands on my shoulders as she looked into my eyes. “Focus, Meg. You hear me?”
I nodded, but I didn’t know for sure if I could focus. The door was shut, but I could still hear the gunshots. Or maybe it was my imagination. Maybe they were echoing through my head, because I couldn’t believe that the sounds would be able to penetrate the thick door Helen had just slammed shut. I looked down, and the sight of the blood on my hands made me shake. Trembles moved up my legs through my body, and I wanted to turn and run back out into the hall. I needed to help my aunt. Needed to help my friends.
But I also knew I was needed here.
“You have to calm down.” Helen’s gravelly voice penetrated my worries, bringing my thoughts into focus. “You can’t go into this shaking and out of control. I need you, but if you can’t handle it I can go in on my own.”
I tried to turn so I could look out into the hall and find out if my family and friends were okay, but Helen grabbed my face between her hands and stopped me. She forced me to look at her, and something about the intense expression in her blue eyes helped some of my anxiety melt away.
“Focus. There is no one here but you and me. Got it? No one. Close your eyes, take a deep breath.”
I did as I was told, breathing in slowly through my mouth and then letting it out through my nose before repeating the process. Trying to block out everything that had just happened in the hall. Trying to put my worries into a compartment where they would be safe until later.
“There’s no one else here.”
With my eyes closed, I could almost believe her. The lab was so secure that no noise was able to penetrate the door. The sound of gunfire had been in my head, and it finally began to fade. With it gone there was no other noise except Helen’s breathing and the whoosh of the ventilation system as it pushed clean air into the room.
“Okay?” she whispered after a moment.
“Okay,” I replied and opened my eyes. “I’m okay.”
Helen nodded once. “Let’s get suited up then.”
I kept my back to the door and did as I was told, focusing on my breathing and Helen’s calm voice. We stripped the leather from our bodies and put on scrubs, and then we pulled the suits on. Then the gloves, using tape to secure them to the sleeves so none of the possibly contaminated air inside the lab would be able to leak into the suit. We did the same with the booties we put on over our shoes, and with each new step I found my body relaxing even more. It was a long and tedious process, but I focused on each individual action instead of what I was about to do or what might be happening behind me, and it helped keep me calm.
Our hoods were the last things we put on, and once they were in position Helen pointed to the side of her head. It took a moment for me to figure out what she was trying to tell me, but through my gloves I was able to feel a tiny button on the side my hood. When I pushed it, a burst of static crackled in my ear.
“Can you hear me?” Helen’s voice broke through the static.
“Yes.” I swallowed when my voice shook.
Now that we were ready, the reality of what I was about to do started to sink in. Inside that lab there was more than just the zombie virus to worry about. On the other side of that thick steel door, dozens of deadly viruses sat just waiting to be released so they could wipe out even more of the population. One false move and I could die a horrible death. In a way, those viruses were even more of a threat then the zombie virus. The CDC had vaccines for that, but the others, the viruses that hadn’t been created by Star, could very well be unstoppable if released.
>
“Okay.” Helen’s voice seemed to slam into my eardrum. “Just do as I say and everything will be okay.”
I nodded, but since she had already turned and headed to the next door, she didn’t see me.
My breath bounced off the window in my hood when I exhaled. It was hot and moist on my face, but I knew it was only temporary. Once we were in the lab we’d hook the suits up to one of the many oxygen tubes hanging from the ceiling, but before we had a chance to do that we would have to go through two sets of doors.
Helen got the first one open and I followed her through. This room was only big enough for a handful of people, four at the most. It housed the decontamination shower we’d have to go through when we came out, as well as a separate ventilation system to ensure that none of the air from inside the lab could leak out.
We stopped once we were in the small room and closed the door, and the click seemed to echo through the suffocating space. Once it was secure, Helen moved to the next door. I wasn’t sure if her hand was shaking when she reached for the knob or if it was just my imagination, but I knew mine was trembling. In fact, my whole body was.
The door opened with a hiss and Helen stepped into the lab. I was right behind her.
There were tables along the walls and cabinets and desks, and areas where microscopes and slides were lined up in a neat row. I imagine that it had once been a well-used lab, but the need for it had died twenty years ago when the original virus was released, and I noticed that despite how pristine it had appeared upon first glance, everything was now covered in a layer of dust from disuse. The glass slides were filmy and our feet left footprints in the dust that had gathered on the floor, leaving a trail that made me think of Hänsel and Gretel, and the story of the breadcrumbs they had left behind in the forest.
Helen walked forward, barely glancing at the tables as we went by. She didn’t stop until she reached a couple curly, yellow tubes hanging from the ceiling, and I watched as she reached up and grasped one in her gloved hand.
Twisted World Series Box Set | Books 1-3 & Novella Page 87