by Jack Wallen
“All it takes is one bite, Doctor. I nearly got her once; this time she can’t escape. You’ll be wishing you hadn’t lied to me in a moment.” I slowly turned and made my way to Susan’s side. I placed one hand on her head and caressed her hair. The gesture wasn’t so much creepy as it was fatherly, brotherly.
“You will be kind enough to remove your hand from Susan.” Godwin was quickly losing control.
“Doctor, if you don’t tell me what I want to know, you’ll be begging for much more than that. Can your conscience handle the thought of being the harbinger of your daughter’s transformation into a fellow moaner? I don’t think so.”
I stepped away from Susan and moved toward the window dividing the antechamber from the main room. I wanted to get as close a look at the doctor as I could. I wanted to see the twitch in his eye, the nervous sweat beading on his forehead.
“But I wonder, Dr. Godwin, must I be in full-zombie mode in order to infect your daughter? Or will a bite from me in my current condition suffice? Shall we find out?”
I went back to Susan, who was crying. I hated this. I really wasn’t a monster, just a man trying to force his will upon another in order to bring about change. This girl, for all intents and purposes, was innocent. Corruption couldn’t run so deeply in a soul so young.
Or could it?
I grabbed the girl’s arm. I thought about biting her on the neck, à la Bela Lugosi, but that just seemed a little too heavy on the pedophilia for my tastes. So, a simple gnaw on the forearm would have to do. Innocent enough. Just enough teeth to break the skin, and a lick of the wound to ensure infection.
Surely Godwin would crack before I had to go through with this heinous task. Of course, I thought the cracking would have happened already. Maybe Godwin was tougher than I thought.
“I’m not really his daughter.” The whisper drifted up from Susan. I glanced down to see her subtly shaking her head.
That couldn’t be. Seriously. No old man could play me that well. I looked between the two of them. There really was little to no resemblance. But why? Why would some brilliant scientist make up such an elaborate lie? Unless―oh, my fucking God!―unless he needed a sucker to play along. Shit. I guess he found a willing mark, didn’t he?
Fine. If that was the way he wanted to play the game.
“Play along and we’ll get you out of here.” I whispered. I glanced down to see her head offer the slightest nod.
I grabbed Susan’s arm and pretended to sink my teeth into the flesh. As I mock-chomped the girl, I looked out to see the doctor…
…not bat an eye. Bingo!
I gently let go of Susan’s arm and went into the other room.
“I have a better idea. Unlock the doctor’s cuffs, Bethany.”
“What are you doing?” Godwin asked as Bethany undid the handcuffs on his right wrist.
“Changing the rules, Doctor. Trade places with Susan.”
“I will not!” He had obviously figured out my plan.
“Oh, yes, you will.” Bethany handed me the handcuff, and I forcibly dragged the doctor into the chamber where I roughly sat him on the chair and latched the cuff back on his wrist.
“Susan, close and lock the door behind me.”
“Why did you let her go? She is infected now.”
“No, she’s not. I didn’t bite her. She let me in on a little secret. It seems Susan doesn’t have a daddy named Lindsay Godwin. So why don’t you tell me who the girl’s real father is?”
“I have no idea what you are saying.”
“What’s the girl’s real last name?”
“I do not know. I do not know.”
“Why did you do it?” I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from the doctor’s mouth.
Silence.
“Godwin, I recommend you spill your guts, or the next thing my mouth tastes is your blood.” I managed to inject a Darth Vader-like menace into my voice.
“I do not know the girl’s last name. I used her as a safeguard. She was in the hotel where I was staying, and she had lost her mother. I promised her I would help her find her mother if she would help me. Without her knowledge, I immunized her from the effects of the blast. I told her I could get her back to her parents, but she had to pretend, at all costs, that she was my daughter, or the monsters that would soon walk the earth would take her. I had no idea what her mother’s name was, or even if she was alive.” By now, tears were streaming down the doctor’s cheeks.
“And then you used her to gain sympathy to make sure someone would find you and help you. Isn’t that right?”
Silence.
“Isn’t that right?!” The menace returned to my voice.
“Yes. Yes. You are correct. I knew I could not lure anyone into my plan alone. I assumed the best way to gain the trust of another was with the help of a child. It worked, did it not?”
I wanted to slap the arrogance out of his mouth. Instead, I held myself in check. Dr. Godwin did, in fact, still have a good deal of information I needed. “You are going to tell me what I need to know, or your fate will parallel mine.” I leaned in close enough to smell the dander in the doctor’s hair. “Can you synthesize a cure from my blood?”
I was met with yet more silence, a very calculating, cold silence.
“If that’s the way you want it…” I grabbed Godwin’s arm and sank my teeth deep into the meat. Blood quickly filled my mouth. I made sure plenty of my precious zombie juice made it into his system with a long, wet lick of his fresh wound.
The doctor’s reaction told me everything I needed to know. The first thing out of his mouth was a yelp of pain, followed by a realization of the deeper meaning of such a simple action.
“Why would you do such a thing? You monster!” His voice bordered on hysteria.
“This is now, officially, the pot calling the kettle black. Now, how’s about a little hug? We are family, after all.” My stab at humor didn’t help the man’s state.
Godwin stood, knocking his chair out from under his sagging ass. “Do you realize what you have done? I am the only man alive with any chance of creating a cure for this infection.”
Gotcha!
“And up until now, you had no plans for doing so. You were content with observing me go through hell from the other side of that window. Well, guess what? Now you have a damn good reason to find a cure. To save your own ass.”
Doctor Godwin made a lunge for me. I sidestepped his attempt and watched him tumble to the ground.
“I do not even know if a cure is possible!” The doctor screamed.
I opened the door and gestured for the doctor to leave. “Then I suggest you get to work finding one. Oh, and Godwin? I’ll be watching you, so don’t try anything you might regret.”
Doctor Godwin stood, smoothed the front of his lab coat, and made as graceful an exit as he could. I watched him leave, wondering if I had done the right thing. My gut gladly informed me I had. My mind agreed. My heart, however, beat with a twinge of guilt.
“I have to say, that was pretty sexy watching you go all alpha male on him like that.” Bethany surprised me with a flirtatious caress of my arm.
I glanced over and saw Susan looking as lost as I’d ever seen another human being. Swimming in the sea of my own testosterone, I had completely forgotten about her. This whole situation was difficult for an adult. I could only imagine what it must be like through the eyes and mind of a child.
“Susan, I’m sorry.”
Without a word, she bolted from the room. My confused glance toward Bethany must have spoken much more than I thought because she kissed me on the cheek and took off after the young girl.
And there I was, left alone to ponder the ever-damnable decision I had made. My knee-jerk conclusion?
This sucked.
Chapter 20: Hell at the gate
On my way to check on Godwin, I decided to make a pit stop in Room 77. My agenda was simple: check for any new messages, scan the news, and make sure Godwin couldn’t communicate
with the outside world. The last thing I needed was a bunch of government goons raiding the place and spoiling what little plan I had.
At least I had to think I had a plan. I would hate to assume everything I was doing would come to no significant conclusion outside of a few unnecessary deaths. And by unnecessary, I meant mine, Bethany’s, and Susan’s. Fuck Godwin.
Come to think of it, maybe my death would bring a sigh of relief to those around me. After all, I was no more than a ticking time bomb ready to turn against those who had entrusted me with their salvation. Once turned, I would destroy without remorse. I wouldn’t stop until the silence was unending.
Staring at the communications console, I couldn’t help but think taking my own life just might solve a lot of very serious issues. But on the other hand, now that he had the motivation, Godwin could find a cure. So it would probably be beneficial to at least let this scenario play itself out. I just had to make sure there was no ‘next victim.’
The red light was blinking with that slow, steady rhythm that told me another encrypted message had arrived. I would’ve retrieved the message, but there were two roadblocks in my way: 1) I had no idea how to get the message, and 2) even if I could get it, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to get beyond the encryption. I had to remember to inform Bethany of the message.
The next phase of my plan, and one that I could see through to completion, was to scan the news. This was simply a matter of flipping channels on a TV, surfing the web, and tuning a radio. The biggest change on the television news was the death toll. One of the U.S. news affiliates was reporting that the entire population of Sweden was gone.
Viral Genocide.
I wasn’t sure if it was a terrible turn of irony or just not fair that a neutral country like Sweden would fall victim to this tragedy. The whole fucking country. Gone.
The new list of defunct countries was not populated―pun intended―by only one name. France, Italy, and Iceland joined Sweden in the ranks of irrelevancy.
I had hoped to visit Italy someday. That hope has been pissed away. What a shame. A lot of really beautiful women were dead, and a lot of great food was gone.
I was sitting at ground zero, dying alongside a world that was dwindling away one country at a time. But it really wasn’t that simple. My death was apparently going to come in random spurts, while the rest of the world enjoyed a smoother, faster transition from human, to zombie, to worm food.
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes write sorry on the bosom of the earth. To quote Shakespeare in a time of sorrow seemed fitting.
Depressing. Oh well. No time to mourn or weep.
With the news officially checked, and officially grim, I had to try to think of a way to keep Godwin from communicating with his sources. This plan lead to two obvious realizations: 1) Godwin’s sources would grow suspicious of his lack of communication and come to find out what was wrong, and 2) if I did stop him from communicating, it would have to be without damaging any of the equipment. There would hopefully come a time when we would need to communicate with the outside world, or what is left of it, to let someone know we were still alive. This equipment was also our only means of knowing the state of the world above us without actually poking our heads back into the land of the dying. The latter thought made me realize I had no idea what was going on above us. I had been so concerned with the doctor that I had forgotten about the real, immediate danger.
The most logical next step would be another chat with Godwin. My patience was growing quite thin. If chatting up the good doctor didn’t work, all I had to do was hang around the man long enough until my personal Dr. Jekyll gave way to my Mr. Hyde, and then all hell would break loose. If the undead couldn’t get a full confession out of Dr. Godwin, nothing could.
I decided there really wasn’t much more I could do in Room 77. It was time to get a few more answers. I stepped out of the room and, after notifying Bethany of the message, I headed to the lab.
The doctor was sitting in a sterile office chair with his head resting on his folded arms on an equally sterile desk.
I closed the door behind me harder than necessary to wake the sleeping genius. It was confession time. I made sure the batteries in my digital recorder were fresh and inserted a new memory card. Having Godwin on record would go a long way should I need proof that he was the direct cause of the apocalypse. The recording also made it easier to document this nightmare. All I had to do was hit Rewind if my brain found itself blanking on a moment. This whole hell on earth has been recorded on over twenty gigs of memory.
“Who are your sources?” I banged my fist on the table next to him.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I want to know who coerced you into taking on this project.”
“I have already told you everything.” Godwin casually removed his glasses to clean them.
“Everything you’ve told me has been a lie. It’s time for the truth.”
“Or else what? Are you going to kill me? I think not. You are not a killer. Or are you going to transform into zombie mode and bite me? Oh wait, you have already done that, and now I have nothing to live for. I will tell you nothing.”
“Everyone has something to live for. It’s only a matter of time before I find out what your story is.”
“Why does it matter? I am sure you have already seen the destruction my virus has wrought. It is an absolute destruction. Absolute and unforgiving. There is nothing, let me repeat that, nothing we can do.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Belief is not an option. We are well beyond faith. Besides, faith would do you about as much good as trying to force a cure out of me. So please, just leave me in peace.”
My frustration got the best of me, and I overturned the desk Godwin was leaning on.
“What are you doing? Trying to scare me into bending to your will? So you can overturn a desk. Am I to be impressed, Jacob?”
“Godwin, let me put this in terms you might understand. I do have a reason to live. Because of that, you are going to help me to do so.”
“No, I am not.”
The urge to crush the man’s face bubbled up in my brain. But before the urge could completely take over, Bethany came crashing into the room. She gestured for me to step outside.
“What is it?”
“The message. It’s easy to decrypt now that I have the cipher key. It’s from his wife.”
“Wife? You’re kidding me?”
“No.”
“That’s perfect.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see. What else did it say?”
“I’m not done. I just wanted to let you know who it was from.”
“Well, get back and finish decrypting that message.” I smiled to soften my harsh tone.
Bethany winked and left the room.
“I’ll make you a deal. You tell me who your sources are and find a cure for this hell you created, or we will have to tell your wife you didn’t survive the blast.”
“My wife is dead.”
“Not according to the encrypted message we intercepted, an encrypted message Bethany is about to decrypt and read.”
Silence.
“I’ll get the message and read it to you if you like.”
“You wouldn’t dare harm my wife. Besides, you have no idea where she is.”
“We don’t have to know where she is. All we have to do is send a message encrypted with your private key, telling her you are no longer alive. I would imagine your poor wife will suffer a great deal.”
Silence
“So what’s it going to be?”
“You son of a bitch, if you hurt my wife, I will make sure you suffer a worse fate on earth than any you would find in Hell.”
“How dare you get self-righteous on me? If anyone deserves a bit of hellfire and damnation tossed his way, it’s you. Have you bothered to stop and think about what you’ve done? You have single-handedly set in motion th
e end of the human race. And now you are making threats about the consequences of lying to your wife about your death? How dare you? I should send the message on principle alone. You don’t deserve a single ounce of happiness, however remote.”
“You are right. I do not deserve to be happy. And I am not. I have deserved everything that has befallen me and more. But please do not hurt my wife. Knowing she is safe is the only sliver of hope I have of retaining my sanity.”
“And with that in mind, you should seriously consider our deal. And if I were you, I’d make it quick. This deal will not be on the table forever.”
Silence.
“My source was a single man. A venture capitalist who focused on biotech. He contacted me through a third party. I have never met him. I know he is wealthy beyond our wildest imagination, which is why I agreed to his proposal. He made me a deal I could not refuse.”
“Are you telling me this was all for money?”
“On my end, yes. On his end, no. My source was a truly hate-filled man who wanted nothing more than to see the German race suffer. My only goal was to weaponize my virus and sell it to the highest bidder.”
“So how much did you sell your soul for?”
“One hundred million dollars. I did not have to think twice when that much money was offered. At first I was funding much of my research myself. It wasn’t until I gave the man proof of the concept that I received the first of many payments.”
“But how did you know you could survive?”
Before Godwin could answer, a chime sounded.
“Jacob, we have a problem.” The voice was Bethany’s, and her tone was all business.
“Sorry, Doc, we’ll continue our little tête-à-tête in a moment.” Without waiting for a reply, I left the lab, securing the door from the outside. I didn’t want Godwin escaping and finding some new way to make my life more torturous.
Bethany had given me no indication as to where she was. But unless she had figured out a way to broadcast room-specific announcements telepathically, she could only be in one location.