by Jack Wallen
“How the hell should I know?” Fear quickly shifted to anger, anger based on the fact that I hadn’t even bothered to ask what was going on. Of course, if our recent history was any indication as to what was going on with ‘BN’, whoever it was had no time to type out the exact details of their situation.
“Ask them!” Godwin’s voice rose above its usual calm as he pointed to my phone.
Anger made a quick shift to embarrassment. I brought my phone up close and personal so I could peck out the text as we continued on our near run. My fingers had lost all sense of steadiness, making it nearly impossible. Was it fever or fear?
One letter at a time I managed to get out:
jacob> wHat heppening?
My text was followed by way too much downtime.
BN> surrounded
I relayed the information to Dr. Godwin, who promptly doubled his pace.
“We must hurry.” Godwin’s voice was pulling away from me. I wasn’t sure what had lit the fire under his heels. Was it guilt? Shame? Or was it some darker purpose? “We will be lucky if we make it before they fall prey to those monsters.”
Unfortunately, in my current state of whatever-the-fuck is going on, I wasn’t sure if I had run-mode left in the ol’ tank.
“Come on!” Susan must have picked up on my doubt of my ability to keep up because she grabbed my hand and ran beside me. We finally caught up to the doctor just as we reached the depot. I couldn’t believe we had made it without a single moaner or screamer attack. The building was typical Gothic-style architecture, fitting for the circumstances. I looked up expecting to see huge stone gargoyles leering down, their blood-red eyes longing to swoop down, fly us up to their lair, and do with us what gargoyles might do with human flesh and soul. But there were no gargoyles, just stone walls and heavy glass in the stories above. And, like every good German building, there were plenty of stone stairs to climb.
We continued our little sprint up the stairs and through the entrance of the depot. We were so close. Inside, we were met with impassioned screams of fear which poured down from one level above us. We hit the closest stairwell at a sprint. As soon as our feet found purchase on the marble of the second floor, what we saw nearly punched us in the collective gut.
A woman, presumably ‘BN’, was standing in the center of a large room in what seemed like the throes of shock as a pack of moaners circled around her. The brain-munchers inched closer and closer. Without hesitation, Godwin pulled out his pistol and took aim. One single shot and the moaner closest to the screaming woman went down. I followed suit and picked off the next in line. For whatever reason, be it the instinct to protect something as precious as another’s life or the self-serving survival of the fittest, our aim was dead-on.
Pun intended.
But would our ammo outlast the never-ending supply of targets?
“Jacob, how are you on ammunition?”
“I have no idea,” I screamed over Godwin’s gunfire.
“Are you hurt?” Susan desperately tried to get the woman’s attention.
“I think she’s in shock. Susan, help me get her behind us!”
“Doctor, wouldn’t it be better for us to just back them down?” I asked.
“Good idea, Jacob. Follow me!”
“Jacob…the door! See if you can block it.”
“Come on, you son of a bitch!”
“Got it!”
“Jacob! Duck!” As soon as I hit the floor, Godwin let loose a blistering round of shots that slammed into the last of the moaners, sending him flying out of the room.
I scrambled to get the door shut, and then slid a file cabinet in front of it.
“Jacob, I think we did it.” Godwin let out a cheer, an odd sentiment given the circumstances.
Amid all the chaos and gunfire it was so easy to forget that not everyone was mentally and emotionally equipped to handle the hell that had become humanity. The insanity could quickly bore into the consciousness and spiral a person into madness. And I’m sure the ear-splitting rattle of gunfire only served to cement the woman’s state of mind. Once the casings from the machine gun had cooled on the floor, and the last echoing strains of moaning and screaming had ceased, the woman showed signs of both life and sanity.
We sat, littered about the room, waiting for an absolute silence to beckon us onward and out of the fright-zone. We also had to give our new traveler time to regain her composure. It didn’t take her long.
“What in the hell has happened? What were those things?” the woman asked with saliva and sweat dripping from her chin. Underneath the fear-induced sheen, the woman was beautiful. Long, curly, red hair framed her face, and a look of intelligence beamed from the greenest of eyes. She was lithe and dressed in jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers. But despite the gunfire fiesta we had just had, she was still clueless about the situation.
I thought about how funny it was, the way we took things for granted. For instance, the fact that the city had been over taken by mindless, brain-eating moaners was not yet in the public domain. I guessed that no one outside of our little trio had any clue what was going on. And why should they? After all, the horror show had only just begun.
Once Dr. Godwin explained to our newest member what had occurred, the number in the know grew by thirty-three percent.
So there we were, standing in a large room filled with rotting corpses and the smell of decaying flesh and gunpowder hanging in the air, which was oddly intoxicating. I felt as if my sense of smell was heightened, and I was internalizing it all in a way I never had before. The tingle of every molecule landing gently on my olfactory nerves was something I had never experienced. Something was different. The human condition was never meant to consume smells like this.
My train of thought wandered off into the distance.
“Doctor, look at Jacob.” I heard Susan through what seemed like a wall of water; her voice was muffled, transposed. “What’s going on with him?”
“I cannot say. Of course without a detailed examination, I could only make a superficial―”
“Lindsay!” Susan barked.
“It could have been the device. He had no immunization, after all.”
“Is he going to be okay?” our new survivor asked with concern.
“He kinda comes and goes. You have a name?”
“I’m sorry. It’s Bethany. Bethany Nitshimi.”
“I’m Susan. And this is Dr. Lindsay Godwin.”
“Glad to meet you, Mrs.―”
“Miss.”
“My mistake. Miss Nitshimi.”
“Wh―what happened?” The fugue was finally letting me go. I was trying to process what I had heard, but didn’t see the point in letting them know I had been aware of them speaking around me.
“Welcome back, Jacob.” The doctor put his arm around me to keep me from stumbling backward.
“Where did I…?”
“Calm down, son. You simply went away for a moment. When we have some time, I would like to run a few tests on you.”
“Of course.”
“In the meantime, I suggest we move to some place a bit more secure.”
We searched for another way out of the building. The stairwell that had brought us to the room was most likely still filled with moaners. Fortunately, there was another empty set of stairs on the same floor.
It was growing darker outside, which only served to heighten the severity of our situation. It seemed there was no safe haven. The entire city, streets, alleys, and buildings, seemed to be infested with moaners. Our only hope was to continue creeping silently in the shadows. Unfortunately, doing anything silently had become exponentially more difficult now that we had another person in tow.
And since our last showdown, I was feeling a bit…well…off. I couldn’t discern what it was, but I felt colder than I thought I should. And my skin, my skin didn’t seem to belong to me anymore. I couldn’t figure out exactly what that meant, but it was the only way to describe what I’d been feeling.
Foreign. I was
foreign to this land and foreign within myself. And before I went all hipster, über-intellectual and assumed that to be some quaint metaphor for being in a state of quasi-emotional metamorphosis, I had to remind myself not to bother; my words were meant very much literally. The meat underneath my skin didn’t belong. There was a sick, sadistic part of me that wanted to slowly, and quite painfully, slice away the gift-wrapping holding me captive. Fortunately, my brain was intact enough to know that would only bring trouble―and death.
“Is anyone else cold?” My mouth opened before my conscious mind could tell it to shut the fuck up. Fortunately, everyone in the group merely shook their heads.
Chapter 10: The installation
Dr. Godwin finally confessed that he had a lab tucked away where we would be safe. A part of me wondered why he had waited to inform us of his sanctuary until after we had trudged around in the middle what seemed to be the night. I still couldn’t be sure of the time of day because of the damned flakes of skin falling from the sky. In the end, it really wouldn’t matter, so long as we all made it there safely. We were all still alive, and now it seemed we had a place to take refuge.
We all agreed it was the only logical place to hide away until we could figure out some semblance of a next step. Godwin informed us that the lab was only a few miles from the bus depot. Miles. Great. More walking through the cover of night and dandruff trying to fend off brain-eating moaners. My kind of date.
Was it Friday? Saturday? God, I didn’t even know what day of the week it was.
Our new tag-along, Bethany, was fairly silent. Of course, we were all fairly silent during our hike. We had to be. Any sound from our little gang would be amplified tenfold, bringing countless moaners, and probably some screamers, to picnic on the precious cargo hidden within our skulls. Fun times. Fun times.
We arrived at the building with our hearts pounding from fear, but beating nonetheless. Somehow we managed to make it unscathed. Either the moaners and screamers had called it a day, or there was some brain-buffet party on the other side of town we weren’t privy to.
When we arrived, the building housing the lab was as dark as the sky. We were deep in the funk of night, and there was not a moon in sight, thanks to the man-made dust that would probably never cease falling. The pitch-black sky made for a perfect backdrop for the doctor’s lab.
“Still-Life Armageddon,” I whispered under my breath.
The face of the building was fairly nondescript in such a way as to make anyone with even the slightest streak of conspiracy theorist in them think something was going on behind those closed doors. It was too sterile, too “government.”
We marched right up to what should have been a front door. There was nothing but a keypad and what looked like a vocal receptor. The doctor leaned in, keyed a numerical sequence, and then spoke in to the microphone.
“Those lips that Love’s own hand did make, breathed forth the sound that said ‘I hate.’” The doctor spoke each word slowly, with purpose. “Shakespeare,” he said as he turned and smiled.
The old man was really growing on me. He was a gentle gentleman who reminded me of the character Richard Attenborough played in the film Jurassic Park. He had that child-like wonder in his eyes and a twinkle in his smile that said ‘Wait until you see what I have up my sleeve.’ Of course, the parallels between that movie and our current situation had not gone over my head. No, we were not under raptor attack, but those damned moaners were just as annoying, and just as deadly.
“My lab is a wee bit underground. We just need to head to a special elevator that will take us there.” The doctor’s voice had that sense of glee again. He was a child with a golden ticket to wonders no other child had laid eyes on before.
“I must tell you that up until now, everything you are about to see was under the strictest of confidence. Very few people knew of what we were doing.” Godwin couldn’t help but use that ‘hush-hush’ tone. Habit, I presumed.
“I don’t suppose anyone would mind finally telling me what is going on?” Bethany spoke with a strange urgency she had yet to display. I was caught off guard.
“Why, of course!” Doctor Godwin said as he gestured for us to step into the elevator.
I wanted to stop and insist he enlighten our newest member on the ‘why’ of the device. The whole genocide issue would go over splendidly, I was sure. But considering how valuable the man was to our continued existence, I figured the last thing we needed was an internal war. So I decided to let him unfold the story as he saw fit.
“The device you have heard me speak of was a Quantum Fusion Generator. I was its creator.” Even knowing his generator had brought the planet to its knees, he still spoke with an infectious pride.
“During the demonstration of the generator, something catastrophic occurred. The result is that much of the population is dead.” The pride in the doctor’s voice slowly drained away.
“Now, for some reason, the dead are not remaining so. I believe the device has caused not so much a mutation, but a partial reversal of cellular decay.” The doctor’s voice finally issued an undertone of shame. Good man.
“I’m not sure I follow.” Bethany said.
“The dead won’t stay dead,” Susan chimed in.
“Are we talking zombies?” Bethany choked out a laugh.
“Zombies are fictitious. This, on the other hand, is quite real.” The shame had once again ebbed from the doctor’s voice.
“And just what is this?” Bethany’s voice contained equal parts mockery and curiosity.
“This is a post-apocalyptic nightmare, where dead people roam the streets, and it snows flakes of human skin!” I really enjoyed saying that. In fact, I enjoyed that whole, brief moment probably a bit too much. “Welcome to the new world order.”
The elevator finally came to a gentle, mechanical stop, and the doors hissed open. I had expected the internal workings of what Godwin had called his “lab” to match the sterile exterior of the building. In some respects, my expectations were very much met. The inside of the lab was sterile. The chrome of every instrument, counter, and handle was perfectly polished. The floors had the shine of a fresh mop and wax. The air had the combined smell of hospital, forest, and ocean-side view. I couldn’t pinpoint which smell had the more formidable power. It was almost as if each breath enjoyed a different ratio of each. Maybe the smell within was actually programmed for just that effect.
The furnishings of the lab were far from sparse. In fact, the place was lush. As we walked through the halls toward an unknown destination, it became very clear that the premises served a much grander purpose than just a “lab.”
“So tell me, Doctor, did you work here or did you live here?” My mouth had decided it was time to narrate for me.
“Oh, both, certainly.” Again with the casual-Friday tone. “Government installations of this magnitude are all prepared for extended research and stay. This particular installation was also designed to seal out all contaminants. Once sealed, this floor could fully support ten humans for nearly a full year. Oxygen, water, food, security―everything you would need to survive nearly any catastrophe.”
I couldn’t help but think including this catastrophe. In fact, I was about to bring up just that point when the doctor’s mention of food managed to work its way to my gut. The others also seemed to realize how hungry we all were.
“Ah, yes. I am sure I could conjure up a meal. We could all use a little nourishment. Come with me.” That was the first time we all followed without hesitation. Judging from everyone’s reaction, their stomachs were as empty as mine. And in my current state, I could eat anything, even government-produced Army rations.
When the Doc finally flipped the light switch of the mess hall, I was shocked. Instead of Army-issue, we were staring into the middle of what looked like a mad scientist’s laboratory. I half expected Frankenstein’s monster to be lowered, sparking and quaking, ready for shouts of ‘It’s alive!’
“Everything about this particul
ar installation was an experiment: from the air scrubbers to the plumbing recycling system, to the sustenance processors, everything was well ahead of its time. In fact, much of what you are seeing will not enjoy civilian production for another ten years.” The doctor sounded more like a salesman every second. What the fuck was he selling, and who was he selling it to?
What immediately caught my ear, due to the constant audible protest from my empty stomach, was “sustenance processors.” The phrase smacked of Soylent Green. I was hoping for a little Thai or even a thick, greasy slice of pizza.
“The designers planned this installation for worst-case scenario. That called for deeply embedded recycling systems and a very efficient source of food.” As if the doctor’s sales pitch was about to reach its climax, he pulled a small, green, cake-like product from a box. The inch-thick rectangle wasn’t wrapped and looked about as appetizing as a dog biscuit. And then, of course, he took a bite.
The crunch from the doctor’s mouth sounded like someone crackling through an overly stale granola bar.
“Dig in,” Doctor Godwin encouraged.
My state of near-starvation allowed me to toss caution out of the bus and grab a cake. The crunch and color betrayed the fact that they had absolutely no flavor. I didn’t care. I would have eaten deep-fried Twinkies in my current state.
After three of the beasts, my jaw ached, but my stomach was sated. I flushed my mouth and throat with a glass of the most colorless, odorless, and tasteless water I had ever experienced. The creators of this installation had made sure absolutely everything, down to the pipes that fed the taps, was sterile and bereft of anything that might lend a hint of personality. It was the epitome of function over form.
But there was nothing threatening to munch my brain-pan, so I was okay with sterile.
I was about to ask who I would have to sleep with to get a cup of coffee when my stomach started cramping.
“Oh, shit! Hey, Doc, do you have anything down here in your retreat for stomach cramps?” Without warning, the cramps upped the ante with a massive attack on my gut.