by Jason Durman
There was a man standing there, but it sure as hell wasn't Gatling. This one was wearing a full-out military uniform- a General's (Dad made me memorize 'em all) and his graying hair set in a buzzcut.
He looked down at me, crumpled on the floor, his eyes steely.
"I am General Trafford Caldwell, Miss Walker, and I have been placed in charge of this research facility, and of the CEDA's vaccine project." His tone was icy, like he was releasing this information reluctantly.
"Fine." I said, "How do you do. Now where the fuck am I, and where the hell is Gatling?"
My cussing, sadly, didn't faze him, though I doubted it would do much in the first place. He merely raised an eyebrow.
"Director Gatling is currently standing trial for wartime crimes, perpetrated by his incompetence in managing the CEDA, and in mishandling of the Green Flu Outbreak. I am taking over operations of this facility, and the organization, on behalf of the military."
Ah, fuck. Wasn't this turning out to be a pretty little shitstorm?
I hated Gatling, If he were on fire and all I had was a jar of piss on me, hell, I'd drink it. But if there's one thing I could be reassured about while he was around, it's that there wasn't anyone worse to take his place. True, he was an ass, but not this level of ass as this looked like it was turning out to be.
"Right." I said, carefully, my increasing panic becoming harder and harder not to show.
"So if Gatling's gone, where am I? What do you want from me?"
"I won't divulge our exact location, Miss Walker." Caldwell replied, icily, "As I have mentioned before, you are in a military-sanctioned facility, for the purpose of your protection and aiding the war effort with your biological, ah, assets."
Damnit, Not this shit again.
"So you want me for my blood. Again." I said. This elicited no response.
Then a thought struck me, and made the my panic levels rise even higher.
"Where's Denver?" I asked, quietly, and dreading the answer.
" Subject 1-CB" he said, insistently, "Is not your concern."
I won't list the string of insults, curses, and general blasphemies that flew through my mind right then, 'cos I'd fill a book that would probably start a religious war in 8 different countries. I tried standing, then, managing to stay up and walk over (albeit, in a wobbly fashion) to the glass. Even then, I had to lean against the wall for support.
I looked into those stupid, steely, smug eyes of his, and gave him a red-eyed glare that told him to go to hell.
"You tell me," I said, barely keeping my anger from boiling over, "where Denver is, you son of a bitch, or I will personally smash this window, shoot you through the eyes, and burn this fucking place down."
He simply sighed, his concrete expression never changing.
"Fine. If you insist, Miss Walker, Subject 1-C is being transported to a separate research facility."
That cut it.
"You let me out of this shit-hole this instant." I said ignoring the burning, drugged feeling in my legs, and the fact that what I was doing was probably useless. "Or the walls are gonna be painted with blood."
"The barrier is enforced plexiglass, Miss Walker." he replied, tapping it with his fist. "I highly doubt you could breach it, let alone harm me. And, as much as you want to, I cannot, and will not, let you leave, for both your safety and mine. You are, in fact, of too much value to the military to allow for harm, or escape; what more would it take than a bomb on an unprotected base, or mutinous ideas allowed to form? Though the former Director may have been more...lax in his protocol, as long as I am in charge of this operation, I cannot allow for it to happen."
He stared back at me, furious red-eyed glare meeting his concrete gaze, and then he turned, heading left to God-knows where.
"Progress is progress, Miss Walker."
And then he was gone.
Denver
The straps taste horrible. Bitter, chemical, and a little bit like sick and blood.
I still bite. Tear through it with my teeth, it makes little zzzp-zzp-zzp noises when I bite it through, and still biting when my teeth and jaw and neck hurt,
I'm almost free. The top strap feels looser every time I pull...
Snap.
I arms are out. I can sit up a little, but my legs and hands are still trapped. But if I pull them free…
"Hey!"
One of the shapes is coming closer. I can see a little more now. It's a solider, like the ones near the base.
This one doesn't look happy.
He's holding a gun, and it's pointed at me.
"Don't move." he says. I want to growl, and scare him, but I don't. Scared men shoot.
"Everything alright back there, Mike?" say another voice, far away, in front of me.
"It's under control, Benny." I hear another voice say.
"Good." says the faraway voice. "We're gonna hit some turbulence ahead, so brace yourselves."
"Shit." says the soldier with the gun. "Jim, strap it down again. I'll watch it."
"I'm not taking a fucking step near that thing if it's awake." says Jim. I can smell a little more, now, and I know Jim is scared. "I've seen people ripped apart in front of my eyes by things like… that."
"I gave you a fucking order, Jim." says Mike, who smells angry, but scared, too, under the angry.
Jim doesn't say anything.
"Look, it's under control." Mike says says, and he hits my head with the gun, to I see little things flying around in front of my eyes, and it burns where he hit me. "Do your damn job."
"Yessir." says Jim, and he starts doing something with the straps.
I lie still. The gun is veryvery close.
Then, the metal place starts shaking,
"Shit!" yells Mike, and he falls down. Jim is still up, but he's stopped doing the strap thing, and is holding on to the thing I'm lying on.
Move.
I pull my hands free. The straps on my legs are still there, but I cut them with my claws. The shaking scares me, but I have to keep going.
Run.
"Mike! Mike, IT GOT OUT-"
He smells ververyscared now.
Growl.
Time to go.
Chapter 4
The metal place shakes again.
I can see even better, now I'm out. There's a hole in the wall, and wind blowing through. There's sky outside,
I'm up in the air. I think, and my chest feels funny. I'm panicking.
Mike is getting up. Jim fell over, because of the shaking, and Mike has his gun up at me again.
"Move, and die, zombie."
I want to pounce; part of me wants to tear and bite and attack, because he is the enemy and I must, but I know the gun is there, and it will kill me first.
I don't move.
The thing starts shaking again. Benny yells Sunnavabitch! from the front, and Mike is down. He's not holding the gun anymore.
Bunch up my legs, push off, arms out…
I pounce.
No voices yelling at me, except one, that says I must live I must live I must live and if I want to live I must attack.
There's a krak sound when I hit him, and then he falls down and won't move. I smell a little blood, but he doesn't smell dead. He doesn't get up.
I hear something behind me. I turn.
Jim is trying to get up. He smells even more scared than before. He's trying to get the gun and saying shitshitshitshitshit.
He's far away, but close enough for me to pounce, I don't hit him as hard, but he screams and waves around his hands…
GetitoffgetitoffgetitoffGETITOFFOFME
Benny is yelling, too. "This is Chopper 0NT-V03R, mayday, making an emergency land on Red territory, coordinates 3-8 point 8-8-1-9 degrees north, 8-0 point-"
I don't hear the rest. I'm looking at the man I've pounced on, yelling, smelling the fear and pain and confusion and more fear…
Then it feels like we're falling, going down, and I'm falling off the ground, going up when we're going
down, and I'm hitting things, so I close my eyes and curl up and wait for it to be over.
The sounds stop, after awhile. I think I blacked out. I was up in the air, and now I'm lying down.
I think.
Yeah. I decide. Air doesn't hurt this much.
I can smell the place around me. Smoke and fire and blood, my blood and other blood; it burns my nose and I feel my eyes getting all full of water. Yuck.
I hear things, too. A crackling, like the fire in the woodstove, bigger and far off, and and screechy-metal sounds from all around me.
There's a groan. I think that's me, too.
No, it's near me. I get up, even though the rest of me says owowowowowowow and crk and krnk.
The smoke is all front of me; lal I see is gray, gray, gray, and stinging in my eyes. There's some blobby things- trees- all around, but that's all.
It's cold. As cold as The Cabin, or even more. I'm somewhere else. I think, and it makes my head hurt even more.
There's another groan.
My head is doing the screaming thing again. Many voices, and they're all loud. But I hear one, very quiet, and I know it's mine.
Where's Mar?
She's not here. I can't smell her, and I didn't smell her in the metal place.
Chest is thumping faster. Thmp thmp thmp and my throat is tight and there's little spots flying around in my eyes and everything is screaming again….,
I have to run.
Get up high.
I need to see. Get somewhere safe. In the other place city there was always places where I could see. Tall buildings. I was safe up there.
The smoke is going away a little. I can see the trees better. There's lots of metal pieces and little fires around me, but I run past them and climb up the tree, quick-quick, and I dig my claws into the bark so i can go faster.
I get on a big branch. There's not very many leaves, but I can see, and they cover me so nothing can find me.
There's the metal-thing on the ground, all broken and crumpled. It's a helicopter.
I was in there. They were taking me somewhere.
I don't know where, but it was away from the base. I don't think that's good.
I hear something- the man from the helicopter. Mike.
He's leaning on a tree and I can smell a little blood on the wind. He's talking into a little black box.
"-Ackerman from over borderlands, do you copy? Charlie Whiskey Delta is out, bird is a smoking hole. Pilot down, Rollison is Tango Uniform, requesting backup, coordinates are 3-8 point-8"
I don't listen. I'm thinking.
He's the one who took me.
They took her, too.
He knows where Marcy is.
I pounce.
Pouncing off the tree is hard. I bunch up my legs, all tight (even though they hurt alot still) and I pull back a little, then then I push, really hard, with my feet and sometimes with my hands, and then it's like flying, like planes and those funny squwaky things Marcy says are birds.
The wind pushes on my faces and makes my eyes get all watery. My claws are out, but I don't scream like I did in the city. I stay quiet, and he doesn't hear me coming.
I hit, hard, and I hear something go crk like in the helicopter. He screams and screams and the little black thing goes out of his hands and flies off far away.
I'm not hurt. Just angry.
I put my hand over his mouth so he stops screaming, and my knee on his chest.
"Where's Marcy?" I ask.
She once told me that the jugular vein is located on the left side of the neck underneath the mandible, and that it takes less than 30 seconds to render an average human male unconscious if punctured or severed.
I forget where left is, but I put my claws on his throat anyways and uncover his mouth.
He takes a deep breath, and I can smell the fear and angry in air around him. His eyes are wide, and his face is pale. He tries kicking and hitting me, but he can't move much under my weight.
"Get the fuck off of me!" he screams. I don't.
"I can kill you in a minute." I growl, but he doesn't stop.
"Look, you fucking piece of undead shit, I have a unit coming right now tracking the crash, and when they get here, your ass is gra-"
He doesn't finish talking, because I squeeze his throat tighter.
"Where is she?"
I let go again. His face is a little more blue.
"I have no idea who this fucking Mary pers-"
"The other one. The one with me in the base." I say. It's getting hard for me not to claw at his face.
"Charlie Beta Omega?" he says, and he sounds confused. "It's somewhere in Texas, you pathetic piece of scum. The only reason I'm telling you is so I can st-"
Texas?
It's one of the west states. Near where we were.
It's all I need to know.
Mike is cursing again. I don't think he'll tell me anything else, so I curl up my hand and make it into a fist.
WHACK.
I don't think I killed him. But I don't think he can run away anymore. There's a big bruise on his head now, anyways.
I pick up the black box. It isn't making any noises, but I smash it against a tree, just to be safe.
Then I run.
I don't know where. Just away. Away from the trees and the smell of smoke and blood and anger and fear, jumping and running and looking back sometimes in case there's anything behind me.
I run even when my legs burn and hurt, just so I can be far away from the helicopter as I can.
I don't stop for a long time.
Chapter 5
When my legs won't run anymore, I slow down.
I don't know where I am. It looks like the woods near The Cabin, but it doesn't smell right. I can't smell the smoke anymore, either.
The running hurt my legs, even more. I don't stand up. I sit down, because it hurts my chest and throat when I breathe, and my head hurts, too, now that I'm not thinking runrunrunrunrunrun.
She's gone.
It hits me in the head without hurting, but I can feel it in my chest anyways. There's one part of me that isn't screaming, and it says to me, You are all alone in a place you don't know, and she is gone and she can't help you.
Then the other part of my head that isn't screaming anymore stops and tells me, Sleep.
It's dark, my head and my legs and my chest hurts, and I am tired.
The air is colder, too. I pull my hood up, but it still leaves my hands cold. I'm too cold to smell, but I think I'm alone.
So I find a tree, and climb it. It takes a long time, because my legs yell at me when I climb, and my hands can't hold to branches very much, but I get up there.
There's still screaming in my head. I'm too tired to listen. I just dig my claws into the bark and curl up, and sleep.
Marcy
They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting to get different results each time, despite what the circumstances may tell you.
Frankly, I think that's BS.
I mean, suppose your day is the same, in and out. You wake up the same time, eat your breakfast, take the same route to work, say the same thing to the secretary as you walk, eat the same lunch at the same place, all that crap…
And you expect your life to be fairly chaos-free. Pay your dues, get a shitty retirement plan at age 65, watch reruns of Badland Brawlers until ya die...
But then the apocalypse comes and fucks up your pretty little routine, so you're either clubbing zombies to death in an office bathroom with a toilet dispenser (if you're lucky), or ending up being the one clubbed to death (not so much.)
What I'm trying to say, is: Never place too many expectations on similar outcomes. Stay on your feet, know what the hell is going on, and be ready to run.
I suppose I could be wrong. I never majored in psychology, though I can rightfully say that whoever made up that quote I mentioned above has never, ever felt what it's like to go insane.
Oh, I started simple eno
ugh. Pissed as I was, and as much as I would've loved to coat those pretty white walls with Caldwell's blood and otherwise, I vowed not to go around the bend. That was my plan- from Day One, at least.
I'd keep myself busy, doing pushups and leg lifts and squats and every other damn exercise I would think of, partly to keep from my body from going to hell, and partly from keeping me from thinking about it too much.
The rest of my time? Plotting my revenge. Well, and figuring out how the fuck I'm going to get out of here.
But mostly revenge.
The prospects for both, unfortunately, were looking pretty damn piss-poor. The only pieces of furniture in the place was a sleeping cot, which was bolted to the floor, ruling it out as a ram-rod. The mirrors weren't particularly shatter-happy, either (As one kick and a sore foot later proved). The bathroom off to the side offered no loose objects- no removeable toilets lids, weaponizable plungers, nothin'- other than a weird finger-toothbrush thing they gave me, presumably so that I couldn't use a plastic handle as a shiv. The only vents in the place were about the size of a postcards and were blocked with fans. And, sadly, there didn't seem to be any guards for me to seduce (Which ain't my style, but, hey, ya take what you can get.)
So I was pretty much screwed over.
Nobody ever came inside- not while I was awake, in any case. The morning (Well, presumably morning. Fluorescent lights fuck with your REM cycle like no tomorrow) after I ended up in that hell hole, I woke up with the wonderful, groggy feeling of being drugged off my ass, and a port in my arm.
I assume the assholes were too cowardly to step in without me being asleep, so I had no chance to strangle them with my bare hands.
It was on that particular day that, as I lay back in my cot, my mind went blank. No new ideas emerged. My anger, though still roiling, went stagnant. My ears buzzed with a sound that wasn't there, and my eyes went a little blurry, partly from the drugs, and partly from something else.
And despite the ache in my arm from the bruises and plastic they'd stuck in there, it was nothing like the ache in my head that came from looking up at the stupid goddamn white ceiling, and realizing, for the first time in my life that I, Marzia Adelaide Walker, survivalist, planner of escape, and prepper for the worst, had no fucking idea what to do.