by Lowry, C. L.
“Keep your eyes open. We need to find that med room and get the hell out of here.”
Maverick’s flashlight shone down the dark hallway. Contemplating his next move, Maverick took a deep breath. He knew the risk of continuing down the hallway. All signs pointed to an encounter that he would rather avoid. It was the unknown. There could be one beast in the building, or it could have been a hundred. Although he was prepared to encounter other humans, he did not have the manpower to take on a pack of beasts if that situation presented itself.
“Let’s move,” Maverick ordered before advancing into the dark abyss. Only slivers of sunlight were able to reach this portion of the hospital, doing little to lighten the area. “Give me two right.”
Dalton and Erik hit the next room, stumbling into the small area over an item that blocked the threshold.
“What the fuck was that?” Erik asked.
Dalton did not have to say a word because the stench of death in the room answered the question. Human remains blocked the doorway. Limbs were completely ripped off one of the bodies, and another appeared to be decapitated.
“Stay focused,” Dalton uttered, noticing that Erik’s focus was on the bodies rather than clearing the room with him. “Check this out.”
A medicine cart sat in the corner of the room. Dalton darted toward the cart, ripping the doors open. “Bingo!” he yelled out, revealing the contents that filled the cart. Erik snapped out of his daze to see why his friend was making so much noise.
“What the hell?” Erik said after seeing the load that was left in the cart. “How is this stuff still here?”
Gunshots rang out in the hallway, followed by yelling. Dalton pushed the cart away and headed for the door. Just as he went to peek into the hallway, a large black blur flashed by the doorway. Seconds later, another blur passed.
Maverick let a flurry of shots fly out of his rifle as the black furry creatures rushed him. Jace followed up with a few of his own. A loud roar was let out as bullets ripped through one of the creatures. Dalton and Erik also popped out to join the fight. All four of the men let shots rip as the second beast made its way toward the entrance.
“Bravo team, you got contact coming your way.”
The beast busted through the front door. The strength of the beast sent the doors flying off the hinges and into the street. The hideous creature began sniffing the air, picking up a sent. Blood and saliva dripped from its sharp teeth. A single shot from a sniper on the roof put the creature down easily as the bullet tore through its head. The beast immediately dropped.
“Nice shot,” Darren said. “Alpha team, what’s your status?”
“We’re good,” Maverick replied over the walkie-talkie. “Keep your eyes open, fellas. There could be more of them.”
“Mav, that room we were in had a med cart that’s fully stocked.”
“Ok, we’ll just have to hit grab that stuff and go.”
“Just that? Let’s keep going.”
“No. It’s not worth it.”
A noise came from another room up ahead. Maverick immediately locked on it, and his team did too. They carefully moved forward, advancing on the room. Maverick hesitated, not knowing if more beasts were waiting on the other side of the door. “Give me two left.”
Dalton and Erik stacked up on the door.
“Slow it down,” Maverick ordered in a low voice. “Swing it open and cut the pie. Don’t rush in.”
Erik gripped the knob on the door and slowly turned it. The door began opening, and Erik swung it open. Dalton was perched up over his shoulder, ready to attack anything that came out of the room. A few seconds went by, and the doorway was still clear. Dalton looked back at Mav, who gave him a nod. Erik and Dalton entered the room.
“Contact!” Dalton yelled out.
“Don’t fuckin’ move!” Erik yelled. “I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out.”
Both men had their guns trained on two subjects who were tucked in the corner. One of them was sprawled out on the ground, and the other had his hands raised in the air. The young man with his hands raised was sure not to make a move. “Who are you?”
“My name is Levi.”
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
“I was trying to get this guy some help,” Levi replied. Kyle was still a bloody mess and appeared to be unresponsive. He had no idea what was taking place in the small room. His breathing was labored, and his body was numb.
“What’s your status?” Maverick asked from the hallway.
“We got two subjects in here,” Dalton replied.
“It sounds like we are about to have company, so let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER 19
Lori was a few steps behind Jin as they headed to the medical ward. She noticed the fast pace in his steps. He was walking with determination. She could not help but think about the conversation she had with Abraham. This was a similar conversation she had with Lee before the first group left The Association. She did her best to convince them to stay, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. She was hoping history would not repeat itself. Although Lori knew that she could be useful to The Association, in the back of her mind, she knew that she was not a doctor. This meant that without Abraham, she was not really sure what her fate would be.
“Thank you for assisting me with this, Lori,” Jin said as they reached the medical ward. A tiny grin spread across his face as he looked back at her.
“No problem, Doctor Jin.” A tiny smile accompanied her response. The tiny smile dropped away when she spotted the door at the end of the room. That’s the room Abraham was talking about, she thought. The closer they got to the door, the more anxious she became. Lori always stuck by Abraham’s side, so like him, she had not had too many encounters with the beasts. She also was not privy to all information that was shared between the heads of the research team.
Jin opened a door to a small room. Inside was an empty classroom. There were only two desks and two chairs in the room. There were boxes of office supplies in the corner of the room. Printer paper, pens, staplers, scissors, and more filled the boxes. On one of the desks were three stacks of handwritten notes. These were the notes Jin had Abraham take about the last experiment and also some of his own. “I need these lab notes copied.”
Lori glanced at the stacks of notes that Jin wanted her to copy. Each stack was about two feet tall, and she knew it would take her about two days to organize and rewrite everything he wanted. “I’ll be down the hall if you need anything,” Jin said before exiting the room.
“Doctor Jin.”
“Yes, Lori. What is it?”
“I want to be more than an assistant.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m not stupid. Being an asset is valuable in this place. I need to be valuable if I want to survive in here.”
Jin laughed. “You are starting to sound like our friend, Abraham. I’m guessing that is what your little quarrel was about when I stepped in the room.”
“Yes. I want to be better. I want to be more valuable. I want to do more than just take blood pressures, give out medication, or copy notes. I want to be a doctor.”
“Well, how do you propose we make that happen?”
“You can let me do more than take notes. I can help do small operations and surgeries. You can teach me and then let Micah know about my progress.”
“Isn’t that something Doctor Abraham should be doing?”
“Yes, it is, but he will never agree to it. That’s why I’m asking you.”
Jin took a deep breath, then stepped back into the room. “Lori, logging this data is a very important job. You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you were valuable.”
“I hear what you’re saying, Doctor Jin, but that’s not good enough for me. I have to be able to do more than this.”
“You will be able to do more than logging data, but right now, we are in very trying times. We are performing very serious experiments, and we need people we can t
rust by our side.”
“I can be trusted, Doctor Jin. Please let me help you with more than just copying notes.”
Dr. Jin was reluctant to take Lori up on her offer. Judging by the reaction he got from Abraham, he was not sure if she could stomach the experience. However, he needed assistance. He needed someone by his side to properly document each step that was being taken while creating the formula and the different stages of the mutation. The notes had to be precise so he could replicate the process if need be. “Are you sure that you’re up for this?” he asked sternly. The change in Jin’s tone was a bit concerning.
“Yes. I’m ready.”
“Well, let’s go.”
Jin usually worked alone, but recently; things had become overwhelming. In the past, technology was his partner. He would record his experiments and research sessions and come back to them at a later date when documenting the steps. Times had changed, however, and there was not much technology in his reach. The Association had access to generators but powering up a computer or charging an iPad was not more important than keeping the lights on and necessary appliances running. He had to make do with what he had in front of him. And at the time, it was Lori.
She followed him into another room. The closer they got to the room; a muffled voice seemed to be coming from behind one of the doors. Lori couldn’t tell which room the voice was coming from, but it was getting louder. When they first arrived at The Association, Lori had helped create the medical ward in the building. Alongside Abraham, their team helped turn the music wing of the school into a makeshift hospital. They created the medical ward for very sick individuals and those who were exposed to the chemical gas in some way. The rooms in the medical ward were equipped with restraints, so if a mutation did occur, the rest of the members of the group would not be in danger of an attack from a beast. But now, the medical ward had a very eerie feeling to it.
Jin entered the room, followed by Lori. “Gentleman, is our subject ready?”
“Yes, he is, sir,” one of Jin’s gunmen responded.
What subject? Lori thought as she closed the door behind her.
“TYLER!” Lori yelled out, spotting her daughter’s friend strapped to a chair. “What in the hell is going on?” Lori asked, running over to the teenage boy and checking his vitals. “Why is he in here?”
“Lori, please get over here,” Jin requested.
“Doctor Jin, what is this?”
The sound of a gun cocking grabbed Lori’s attention. She slowly stood up as both gunmen approached her.
“Lori, do we have a problem?” Jin asked.
“Yes, we have a problem. Why is Tyler in here, Doctor Jin?” Lori’s voice began to rise.
“Lori, I need you to calm down. I’ll explain everything.”
“Please do.”
“Well, seeing as though you are a part of the medical team here, you know all about this young man’s condition. You also know that we have run out of medication to give him in order to control his seizures. As long as he continues to have these seizures at random, he is a risk to us all. What you don’t know is that recently I have had a breakthrough with the mutation formula that I was working on. We are on the brink of a cure, Lori. A cure for those dangerous mutations. A chance to get back to our old lives. A chance to restore humanity. The only problem is that my breakthrough formula needs to be tested in order to guarantee its results. We already had one successful trial, and this young man volunteered to be a part of the next trial.”
“Volunteered? My daughter told me that Tyler was instructed to come here. That doesn’t sound like he volunteered for anything.”
“Lori, I’m giving him the opportunity of a lifetime. An opportunity to be free of that disease that currently controls his life.”
“Then, why is he passed out? Why is he not awake for this trial?”
“He was sedated. It’s for his own good.”
“For his own good or for yours?”
“For all of us,” Jin insisted, stepping forward to place his hand on Lori’s.
Lori pulled her hand back in disgust. She kneeled next to Tyler and ran her fingers through his straight brown hair. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“To be honest, the first trial involved exposing the subject to a chemical gas. Once inhaled, the gas caused a slight mutation in that subject. We believe this new formula that we just created will not have the same mutative effects and would be able to possibly reverse the effects on fully mutated subjects. For this young man, I would like to use an injectable form and track the release of it within the human body. That’s why I need your assistance with the documentation.”
“So, you’re going to turn him into one of those monsters? You can’t do this.”
“Lori, I didn’t say that. We are simply going to give him an injection and document what happens to his body. That’s the only way we can find out if this new formula is the cure.”
“There must be another way to do this.”
“There is no other way—”
“There’s always another way!” Lori barked. “So, you’re just going to kidnap our own people and turn them into monsters?”
“Just the ones with a low survival rate.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Epilepsy, cancer, AIDs, hepatitis. There are people among us that are going to suffer and die because there is nothing we can do about their illnesses. We’re running out of medications, and we don’t have the resources to properly treat those people. Rather than letting them suffer, I’m giving them the opportunity to sacrifice. Their sacrifice will guarantee our survival.”
“You’re God now, huh? You get to decide who lives and who dies, while the rest of us just wait until the decision is made that it’s our turn to become one of your little Frankenstein projects. Is that it?”
“You have no room to talk!” Jin snapped. “You have it good here. You don’t know what it means to be out there trying to survive. You sit in this fortress and eat well, while the rest of us have to bear the burden of saving the world. You haven’t suffered, Lori. You haven’t been on the brink of death only to beg for your life to be spared. I have. I understand what it takes to survive in this world, and that’s what we’re going to do here. You either get in line or get out of our way.”
Jin gave a head nod, and one of his gunmen pounced on Lori, pinning her to the ground. Lori kicked and screamed, hoping someone would hear her. The gunman placed his hand over her mouth, muffling her screams. Jin walked over to a table and opened a box, revealing three large syringes that were filled with a thick, black fluid. Jin wrapped a belt around the sedated teen’s left arm and pulled it tight. Veins began to bulge out of his arm, and Jin wasted no time stabbing one of the needles into one of the veins and injecting the liquid.
“Ahhh, shit!” the gunman yelled after Lori sunk her teeth into his hand. She pushed him off her, causing his gun to drop. Lori grabbed the gun and slammed on the trigger, barely missing the gunman who was crawling on the ground. She held the gun up to the other gunman.
“Drop your gun,” she ordered. The man complied.
“What—what’s going on?” Tyler muttered, coming out of the sedation.
“Unbelievable,” Jin said. “Lori, look. He’s waking up from the ketamine. That’s impossible.”
“Tyler, listen to me carefully. These men are trying to hurt you. They injected you with something that’s going to mutate you.”
The teen could not believe what he was hearing. He was going in and out of consciousness. “Ms. Lori, I don’t feel too good.”
“I know, Tyler. It’s going to be okay.”
“Help me, Ms. Lori.”
Lori’s heart sunk into her stomach. Hearing Tyler’s innocent voice sent her over the edge. “Release him—NOW!” she shouted at the gunman. The man looked over at Jin, who shook his head not to follow the order.
BANG!
“The next one will be in you and not that wall,” Lori said. She s
lowly walked over to the table and closed the box that now held two syringes. “Now, release him.”
The man wasted no time scurrying over to Tyler and cutting the restraints. The woozy teen stood up and stumbled over to Lori. “Listen to me, Tyler. Take this box and go to Abraham. Tell him that he needs to leave.”
“But Ms. Lori—”
“GO!”
Tyler staggered out of the room with the box containing Jin’s needles. He was still confused and did not understand what was going on, but he followed Lori’s orders.
Jin carefully watched the teen, amazed that he was even able to stand. Normally, someone in his condition would still be nodded out in the chair. “You’re making a grave mistake, Lori.”
“Shut up. Doctor Abraham was right about you. You’re not going to get away with this.”
“Lori, I was just trying to save us all. You just released that boy into our encampment, and there’s a possibility that he is going to mutate in a matter of minutes. Once he does, he’s going to murder everyone in here, including your daughter. We still have time to stop him.”
“I’m not stopping anything except you and everything you’re doing in here. You will no longer hurt innocent people. I’m going to tell Micah everything.”
“Go ahead and tell him. Did you forget that he’s the same guy that ordered me to test those troops that we brought in? Oh yeah, the one thing you didn’t know is that he murdered twice as many soldiers during the attack on the convoy the same day he brought me into this place. He’s not your savior. So, whatever you think he’s going to do once you tell him what’s going on, I promise you it won’t help your little situation.”
Jin inched closer to Lori. “Put the gun down so we can talk about this. A few minutes ago, you just asked me how you could be an asset to The Association and working alongside me will definitely make you an asset.”
“You’re lying,” Lori responded, switching her aim from the gunmen to Jin.