Z-Minus Box Set 2

by Perrin Briar

  He’d questioned her. She’d often said she attended various events and met various people, far too many for her to recall their names. She’d also been in attendance of her granddaughter Elsa’s birthday party. Dr. Phillips had smiled politely and left the room.

  He’d almost fainted. He was afraid. If Margaret Scott had caught something at an event it was unreasonable to assume she had been the only one. It could have infected a hundred people, a thousand maybe. They would all then travel back to their corner of the world, go about their business, and infect more and more people.

  That was why they were working with the Charlotte Research Center in North Carolina to create a system that would remove the possibility of a worldwide pandemic, to stop it in its tracks before it had a chance to get a foothold.

  Society was more fragile than most people realized. A thin veneer of safety protocols did little to really protect them. They certainly did little to protect Margaret Scott.

  Within a few hours, she was dead.

  All efforts to revive her had failed. Blood had poured from her orifices. Dr. Phillips didn’t much like Margaret, but no one deserved to die like that. Dr. Phillips had pronounced her death, and it felt like it could have described his career too.

  And then Nurse Roberts had screamed, screamed at the sight of the sheet covering Margaret’s corpse as it rose, screamed as the sheet fell, revealing the horror beneath it, screamed as Margaret bit into her flesh.

  Dr. Phillips’ hand curled tighter around the vial of blood. The pack of screeching beasts were on his tail, lurching down the corridor toward him. Baying for him, baying for his blood.

  He reached into his pocket and took out a keycard. He swiped it through the machine terminal. The light above the door blinked red. He tried again. Another red light. Dr. Phillips, beginning to sweat now, took a deep breath and calmly slid the keycard through the terminal. The light winked green. The door began to open.

  Was it always this slow?

  The growls grew louder behind him. Dr. Phillips shuffled closer to the door, not bothering to wait for it to open all the way. He pressed a button on the terminal to close the door, but it kept opening wider. He hit the close button again. The door would not shut before it had completed its opening action.

  Come on, come on!

  The door clicked into place, gaping open like the doors to hell. Dr. Phillips hit a button on the terminal and it finally began to close.

  The shapes were dark lurching shadows, their faces turned up into grim masks. If they got to the door before it closed, the sensors would be tripped and the door would begin to open again. It was a safety door.

  Fuck safety! Dr. Phillips screamed in his mind. What about my safety?

  The harsh florescent lights cast a haunted glow over the three figures, their skin torn and hanging from their faces, their gowns and uniforms bloody and stained. Margaret Scott looked as she did in her nightmares: her skin hanging from her bones, like a living corpse, one that had awoken from its slumber to reenact some kind of vengeance on the living.

  The door whirred, low and reliable as it closed the gap…

  Six inches left…

  Five inches…

  Four inches…

  Still enough room for one of them to place a finger through, obstructing it. They were getting close.

  Three inches…

  Dr. Phillips edged backwards. Either the creatures were going to stop the door, or they were going to barely miss it.

  Two inches…

  One inch…

  Dr. Phillips didn’t see which floppy broken appendage had crossed the sensor, but something had. A red light flashed above the door. Obstruction. The door paused, as if considering what to do next. But Dr. Phillips already knew what it was going to do.

  It began to open.

  “No…” Dr. Phillips said, the blood draining from his face. “No!”

  He’d never been a brave man, had never had much need to be. He was a white collar worker who earned a high wage in one of the most prestigious hospitals in the city. He’d never faced real hardship, never felt the cold brush of desperation, though he saw it from his Mercedes on a daily basis.

  Death and danger headed his way, and he was afraid, terribly afraid. But they were going to get in, unless he did something.

  More out of fear than courage, he ran toward the terminal and bashed at the keyboard with his fist. His anger at the slow-moving door was now his potential salvation.

  A pair of arms reached in through the narrow gap, flailing wildly. Words flashed up on the screen. Dr. Phillips didn’t have time to read them. A red warning light flashed above the door twice in quick succession. Nonsense words to those uninitiated with code.

  Dr. Phillips hit the keys, but nothing happened. The terminal was frozen. But the door was frozen too. The red light spun like the light atop a police car.

  Through the glass in the door Dr. Phillips could see Margaret Scott’s anger. Her arms waved, gruesome and torn, like a monster’s flailing limbs.

  Dr. Phillips breathed a sigh of relief and backed up, barely daring to believe his good luck. He bumped into something behind him. He started, his hands flying open.

  Smash.

  It was a soft sound, the kind that dominates a large space, like someone dropping a fork in a canteen. The blood from Dr. Phillips’ face drained as he realized what had just happened.

  His hands were empty, no longer clutching the vial. The little container had morphed into a puddle of blood and glass at his feet.

  He turned to look at the machine behind him, protected on all sides by thick plastic casing. Its name was Archie, a twin of a model in various cities cross the US. The original was in Charlotte. It was only a prototype. They had run basic tests on it, but nothing like the purpose it was originally designed for. But there was no other option. There was no other sequencer in the building.

  Dr. Phillips leaned against the protective plastic casing and hung his head. It had been up to him to bring the sample here and put it into the machine, but he had failed. He’d failed in his goal, failed his friends and family. Failed the world. And he was trapped.

  But he was safe. The flailing arms weren’t going to get through any time soon. He had time to think of a new plan.

  Perhaps that was the best option: to wait until someone came to rescue him. Dr. Phillips cocked his head to one side. But perhaps not.

  Dr. Phillips reached into his pocket and took out a syringe. He extracted as much blood from the spillage on the floor as he could. It was a meagre amount. He approached the robotic arm and squirted the blood into a receptacle. A completion bar filled with progress before it flashed red and came up with:

  CONTAMINATED.

  A snort from behind the main door. Margaret Scott’s face pressed against the glass, smearing it with blood. Her growls splattered spittle, her turtle pendant shiny as ever. Even in death she was the recognized leader.

  And yet… Perhaps there was still a chance.

  Dr. Phillips approached a work desk, picked up a discarded syringe, and edged forward, toward the door. His mouth was dry. His heart beat in his throat. His proximity seemed to drive Margaret and her cohorts mad with rage.

  Dr. Phillips eyed the swiping, griping hands. He reached out, tentative at first, scrunched up his face in distaste, and grabbed one of the hands. It was bestrewn with jewels. It was Margaret’s hand. She lunged for him in an effort to grab him, and seized him by the coat.

  Her grip was strong. Her mouth appeared in the gap, her gums already bleeding, her perfect teeth cracked. They snapped at him, but Dr. Phillips wasn’t close enough for her to bite.

  Dr. Phillips held the hand steady. He plunged the syringe into Margaret’s arm. She didn’t even flinch. Dr. Phillips drew her blood. The procedure complete, he pulled at Margaret’s grip, but she wouldn’t let go.

  He hacked at Margaret’s arm with the syringe’s needle, but she did not relent. Her blood sprayed over the floor, door, and Dr. Phillips�
� shoes. She howled. Not in pain, but anger.

  Dr. Phillips slipped on the blood stain and hit the floor. The arm came with him, and then dragged him toward the gap. Dr. Phillips spun around and put his feet against the door, one on either side of the gap in a crouched position. He pushed as hard as he could. But the hand would not release.

  A nurse’s face appeared in the gap and snapped at his ankles. Dr. Phillips moved his feet apart, barely out of reach, and raised his foot. He heeled the nurse in the face. She growled at him, but the blow didn’t seem to register. She was going to get him if he couldn’t get free of Margaret’s grip.

  Dr. Phillips shrugged his shoulders and pulled himself free of his jacket. The arm retracted, pulling the jacket through the gap. The three figures looked at it, searching through it, biting at it like ravenous wolves, and then tore it to shreds.

  They turned back to the gap. They thrust their arms through, waving and energetic.

  Dr. Phillips allowed himself a small smile of relief. He chuckled and got to his feet.

  The arms flapped around the inside of the door, angry and aggressive. One arm smacked ineffectively against the door control terminal.

  Dr. Phillips froze. For the second time that day he could see what was going to happen.

  “No!” he said. “No! No!”

  Margaret grinned, as if knowing what she was doing. Her arm banged against the control terminal, this time striking the large green ‘open’ button. The nonsense words on the screen flickered and disappeared. The light above the door flashed green.

  And then the door began to open.

  Dr. Phillips edged back, eyes wide. He was doomed.

  But he still had the syringe in his hand. He’d read with awe about people behaving bravely in the most desperate of situations, putting themselves at risk in order to save others – even people they didn’t know. Dr. Phillips had never taken a risk if a safe option was available. But there was no safer option now. No choice.

  They all need to be warned.

  He turned to the machine and put the syringe into the receptacle. The grunts and roars behind him were jubilant, victorious, loud without obstruction.

  Dr. Phillips kept his eyes on the machine. If he couldn’t see them, they weren’t real.

  The progress meter appeared, performed a circle, and then flashed with:

  ACCEPTED.

  Dr. Phillips opened the messaging system and attached the developing results file. He raised his hand to hit the Enter key.

  That was when they fell upon him.

  Three mouths bit into him viciously, deeply, deliciously. One attached itself to his left arm, another to his waist, and the third just below the knee. The shock cancelled out any pain, at least for the first few seconds.

  Dr. Phillips tugged, pulling against them, to no avail. They gripped him tight, pinning him to the Perspex guard wall. Dr. Phillips had his eyes fixed firmly on the computer monitor.

  ‘Send?’ the console asked blithely.

  The Enter key loomed large, taking up Dr. Phillips’ whole vision, his whole world.

  His blood seeped from his wounds in copious amounts. He felt cold. It wouldn’t take long for him to pass into unconsciousness. The worst thing about being a doctor was knowing what was happening to you when you were sick or dying.

  He reached out a trembling hand. He had to be careful not to hit the wrong key. His fingers shook. He reached over…

  His hand fell…

  And hit the Enter key.

  Dr. Phillips managed a small smile before Margaret appeared in his vision. She wrapped her teeth around his throat and tore out a chunk of his flesh, snapping his esophagus. Blood squirted over the plastic partition wall. Dr. Phillips pressed his free hand to his wound, but it did nothing to dampen the flood.

  The aggressors shifted position. Dr. Phillips fell to the floor. He was as helpless as a newborn lamb.

  He stared at the gold turtle pendant pinned to Margaret’s blouse. In Asia a turtle was considered a sign of longevity, of peace. He doubted that was going to last much longer in the world. It certainly hadn’t for Dr. Phillips. Or Margaret.

  He screamed as Margaret found his soft belly and tore it open, her hands reaching in and removing his innards. The pain was excruciating, dulled only by the disbelief it was actually happening. Margaret Scott and her cohorts supped on him, slurping and chewing and groaning in satisfaction.

  Dr. Phillips’ eyes rolled into the back of his head. Unconsciousness, and soon death, would take him. At least he had achieved his goal. Archie was whirring, his arm twisting and turning, doing its business.

  Six hundred miles away, Archie’s elder twin turned on.

  5:59 am

  Susan slapped the alarm off two seconds before it rang. She didn’t know how she did that, she just could. End pain and discomfort before it has a chance to develop. It’ll help build a happier life.

  It’d become a habit, ingrained during a lifetime of rote and repetition. That’s all a successful life was, really, rote and repetition of the right habits. Susan once ran an experiment to see if she would still wake up at the same time if she didn’t set her alarm. She ended up arriving an hour late for work. She learned she needed deadlines, just so she could beat them.

  Susan got up, moved to the window, and pulled open the curtains. She closed her eyes against the soft sunlight. She rolled her neck and bent over, stretching the muscles in her back, legs and arms. She jogged on the spot and performed some yoga postures, taking care to breathe slowly, letting Rosario’s words tumble through her mind.

  If the mind is the kite, breathing is the string.

  Rosario wasn’t a meditation guru, but a for-hire nanny. Life can be lived by a set of simple insights, she’d maintained. Just make sure they’re the right ones before you start. Rosario was one of those deeply intuitive personality types, the type who could come up with a piece of lifelong advice with a moment’s notice. It was a good thing Susan had someone like Rosario growing up. Her family weren’t much at giving advice.

  Susan Scott was born into a very wealthy family. They were often referred to as ‘the cream of the cream’ in the press, but life above the milling masses always tasted off to Susan.

  She’d inherited her share of the family fortune and sunk it all into property. A management agency took care of leases and tenants. The money the properties made went into an account that she hadn’t looked at in years. It would pass to her daughter Amy one day, and she could use it any way she saw fit.

  Susan kept two properties for herself. The first was the apartment they currently resided in. It was a small, but charming, apartment on the fringes of Charlotte, North Carolina, within walking distance of the park, where Amy liked to run and chase after the dogs.

  The second was a medium-sized country home twenty miles outside town. It was her retreat, a way to escape from all the stress and strains of a busy work and home life.

  When she’d bought the property it’d been named Green Pastures. The name fit, so she didn’t bother changing it. There, she and Amy would go for long walks. They would sit and do nothing. There was no TV, no internet. It was a place to unplug and forget the world for a while. Susan always came back feeling refreshed and energized, ready to take on whatever – or whomever – had stressed her out in the first place.

  A stressful thing is only stressful from where we sit. Shift perspective, and it looks totally different, often fading into insignificance.

  Susan hit the shower. She turned on a wellbeing podcast. She couldn’t hear half of what the lifestyle guru was saying, but she didn’t need to. She would listen to it over and over again anyway.

  Nothing gets into the heart and soul like a recurring message. Just make sure it’s a message you want to be listening to.

  Susan surrounded herself with only the kind of people she liked hanging out with, those she admired and wanted to mimic. She didn’t care for those who naturally drifted toward the Scott clan. Hangers-on and suck ups for the most
part. She had no need nor time for them. She made that clear every year at the obligatory family Christmas do. It was a turmoil Susan was glad Amy didn’t have to endure.

  Susan grew up thinking her mother Margaret was the landlady of the house she lived in. It was Rosario who had raised her, loved her. She was her true mother. Susan had had a string of nannies, some of whom were good to her, some not so good. Susan’s mother didn’t like for Susan to be too friendly with her nannies, and so Rosario would always put on a show of disliking Susan, and encouraged Susan to act the same. It was good practice. High society types were all good actors.

  Susan was not a good actor. Words flowed from her in a river of honesty. With Susan, you got what you saw. For the longest time that was what she blamed for the death of her marriage.

  She’d run the divorce proceedings through her mind a thousand times before they occurred. She was prepared to fight tooth and nail over custody of Amy, prepared to grab every penny she could from their shared wealth, but it turned out her husband wanted none of it. What stung the most was he didn’t want a piece of Amy either.

  Susan didn’t need the alimony payments, but his time with raising their daughter would have been nice. But she had learned to harden herself against his callousness. He would not hurt her or Amy ever again.

  Never compromise, her father had told her. Never compromise, otherwise before you know it, they’ll have the shirt off your back and the thread from your socks. It was the only useful advice she could recall him ever giving her.

  Her father was another shadow in Susan’s life. He was a man who achieved great things in the world of science, research, and academia. He funded his own studies, not needing to go through the usual financial scrabbling route as other scientists. It gave him a freedom most could only dream of.

  Just a few days ago Susan’s mother had told her her father was dead, that he’d disappeared on one of his expeditions – in the wilderness of the Antarctic of all places, that he’d wandered off into the frigid cold and never returned. Susan could tell her mother didn’t believe this, and frankly neither did she.