by M. Lorrox
Lars walks in and smiles at June. “Beatrice is going to make another cup of tea, she’ll be right back. Now, where were we?”
June tries to jump out of the gurney. “What did you do to her?” Then she looks toward her legs, which barely shifted under the blanket. Why can’t I move? She tilts her head and glances at the IV bag Lars hooked up. Am I being drugged? She looks at the doctor and starts crying. “Beatrice?”
He opens his mouth and yawns. “She’s dead, it was painless.”
“No! How could you!”
He wipes his eyes and looks back up at the bag. “I expected you to pass out immediately after the drip started, but…” He looks at her, curls his lips and squints his eyes. “You are remarkably resilient.” He reaches up and twists a knob on the apparatus. “A little extra should get this job done.”
“You’re not—” Whhoooa. “Going to get…away with this.” June twitches and her head flops up and back. The lights in the room multiply and start to stretch up and down, spanning across her entire visual field.
He snickers. “Stupid girl, you watch too many movies.”
Mary, Hamid, Vincent, and a handful of other vampire elders and Council members are led on a tour of the Pentagon by a cheerful young Marine in a crisp, dress uniform. He explains the history of the building and how it serves as the headquarters for the United States Department of Defense. He shows them the different sections, and explains how they’re dedicated to different branches of the U.S. military. Finally, he describes the damage and loss that occurred during the 9/11 attacks.
Sergeant Graham of the United States Marine Corps brings the group around a corner and walks backward. “Behind me is our chapel. We’re going to walk through the chapel to the 9/11 Memorial Room. I ask that no one speaks while we’re inside the chapel. It is open 24/7 and welcomes anyone—practicing any religion or spirituality—to find peace within its walls. Once we all are through the chapel and inside the Memorial Room, I’ll tell you about the symbolism and other elements within that room.” He turns around and walks up to the chapel doors.
Every other door the group has seen in the Pentagon has been solid and was painted the same color as the hallways. The double doors and door frames leading into the chapel are different; they’re made of a golden stained oak, and have patterned, stained glass windows.
The group follows Sergeant Graham in, and he leads them down the aisle toward the opposite end of the chapel. A few people sit in the pews—thoughtful and somber—all but one has their eyes closed.
Mary glances at the woman whose eyes are open. She is in her late twenties, and she holds a beaded necklace in her hands. When the woman glances up at the group and then to Mary, Mary smiles at her. The woman smiles back before closing her eyes.
Mary looks away. I hope your prayers bring you peace… She shakes her head. I wish it were that easy. She sighs and turns with her group to walk through a second set of double doors.
As they enter the 9/11 Memorial Room, the first thing they notice is the different lighting. Two large windows spill yellowish light into the room, across the floor, into a glass-partitioned section, and toward something that resembles an altar with a few books and pens sitting on top. To the left and right of the books are panels filled with names, some with military designations and some without.
Once everyone has entered the room, Sergeant Graham clears his throat. “This room is dedicated to all those who lost their lives at the Pentagon during the attack of 9/11. Please take some time to read the names remembered here. If you care to leave a few words as prayer for them, or to leave thoughts for their families and for the American people, please write them into these books.” He motions with his arm into the section of the room with the books on the altar-like table. “When the books are filled, we scan the pages and post them online.
“You will also find our guest log to the left; please add your names to it if you care to. We will stay here for a few minutes to give you a chance to pay your respects. Thank you.” He takes a step to the side and then back, standing against the wall between the windows—directly across from the books.
The group spreads out in the room, to read the names inscribed on the walls, to read information about the attack and the medals that were awarded posthumously, and to sign their names and write messages in the books. Mary walks up to a wall of names and reads them to herself, mouthing each name in silence.
To Eddy right now, seconds seem like minutes and he tires of sitting and waiting. He grabs his phone and opens the text conversation with the squires. What do I tell them? He writes a text and rereads it before he sends it.
Guys, might have an emergency, might need help asap, don’t say anything to anyone. Are you in the hotel?
Yeah, that’s fine. He sends it, then puts his phone down and exhales.
He stands up and walks over to his duffel bag near the window by his mom’s trunk. He grabs it and empties it on the bed. He changes into a pair of cargo pants and a skintight second-skin style athletic shirt that has some extra padding on the shoulders, around the sternum, and along the sides below the ribs. He bought it because it looked badass, but then he realized it could be useful too.
He changes into crew length socks and switches from his sneakers to a pair of boots. He grabs an bottle from the fridge, and puts it in his leather hip-bag. He looks around the room, tries to take a deep breath—he only gets half of one in—and then collapses back onto the bed. What if she’s sick? What if they took her on purpose? What if…they hurt her?
At the thought, Eddy clenches his fists and screams, slamming the bottom of his hands into the mattress. He sucks air in through his teeth and grimaces at the wall, snarling and tensing every muscle in his body. He closes his eyes and breathes. She’ll be fine. She’ll be perfectly fine... WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU MOM?
The electronic lock of the suite clicks open, and Sadie launches the door open, slamming it into the door stop against the wall. “Eddy?”
He is already in the doorway between the bedroom and the living room and looking at her. “In here!” He turns back and lets his mom through to see the note.
She looks at it and shakes her head. “I have a bad feeling, Eddy.”
“Me too, Mom.”
Michael returns to the examination room and sees June knocked out on the gurney. Lars stands at the far side of the room collecting equipment. “Dr. Melgaard, we are alone. Candace is dead.”
Lars sets some equipment on a rolling cart and turns to face Michael. He sighs. “Very well, thank you.” He starts to push the cart toward June. “She was more resilient than I expected; she required much more sedative than we thought.”
Michael walks toward June. “Is she stable?”
“Yes.” He sets the cart alongside June’s gurney and steps behind it—behind her raised torso and head. He presses a lever on the side of the gurney and the half that was elevated crashes back to down to flat. June’s head bounces against the cushions on the gurney, then settles and turns a little to the side. Lars rubs his hands together and looks at Michael. “It’s time we move on to the next phase. Strap her down and begin the procedure.”
“You know, we’re actually quite lucky.”
“How is that, Michael?”
“She was staying at the hotel. If Exeller’s bombers weren’t caught, she would be dead.”
Lars shrugs. “Mixed bag then, I suppose.”
Michael nods. “True, I—”
“Let’s get started.” He walks past Michael toward the door. “I’ll execute the program in a few minutes.” He turns. “When you hear the alarm for the security doors, start your chronometer.”
I’ll start a timer on my phone, you old nerd. He nods in the doctor’s direction.
Lars leaves and pulls the door shut behind him.
Michael looks down at June. “You are such a pretty thing.” He brushes some hair off her face that had fallen across it when her gurney was returned to being flat. “I hate doing this to you, but
...I’m going to anyway.”
He surveys the equipment the doctor set on the cart: sets of various needles and tubes, tourniquets, tape, bags, sample containers, a scapula, a couple sets of forceps, an electric hair clipper, a pile of ratchet straps, and some long, industrial zip-ties.
He looks at June’s face for a moment before he tears her gown off—pulling her small body a little bit toward him before the material rips free from around her. She is unconscious, on her back, in her underwear. Michael reaches down to the cart and picks up the ratchet straps. He tosses one of the nylon straps over her hips, and wraps another over her chest—under her arms, right up into her armpits.
He feeds each nylon strap into a ratchet mechanism he hooks to the bottom of the gurney’s frame, and gives each ratchet a few tugs to set the strap. As he starts to tighten down the one around her hips, June opens her eyes and sees a blurry version of Michael looming over her.
Now!
She bolts upright with immense force, willing past the sedative running through her veins. The loosely held strap at her torso rips the back half of the gurney’s bed up, just like when it was lifted when she first got into it. June stretches her right arm out with all her might and strikes the dark blur of Michael in the face—making impact with the edge of her palm and wrist. -crack!-
“Ugh!”
With her sudden movement, two of the gurney’s wheels lifted off the ground, and now they slam back down. She recoils her arm to strike again, and he raises his hands to his face to cover his bleeding nose and block the next strike. She hits his hands, crushing them into his broken nose, and he falls backward.
“Lars!”
The gurney shakes itself back to the ground again, and June focuses her attention on her restraints. She slips her arms and head out from underneath the loose strap over her chest, and she sits up straight. The IV line is under the strap now, and it tugs on the needle in her arm. She jerks her arm away from the needle, and it rips off and out of her.
Her head spins. More accurately, the world spins around her. Everything she can see seems to be in delayed reaction—everything with a trail. She’s nauseous, weak, and determined to escape. She reaches for the strap over her hips.
Michael raises up alongside her, and before she can even register his presence, she feels a sharp pain and immense impact on the side of her head. She flies away from Michael’s powerful strike and over the side of the gurney. The strap on her waist pulls the gurney off balance, and it tips to fall.
The spinning room changes, and she knows she’s headed to the floor. She lifts her hands, but not in time. Her forehead connects with the ceramic tiles on the floor, and her right arm is sandwiched awkwardly beneath her.
The gurney lands and slides, torqueing her arm and snapping the bones of her forearm. She would have cried out in pain, but the successive blows to her head knock her out cold.
Lars blasts into the room, the door threatening to tear from its hinges. “What is going on?”
Michael turns toward him with one hand holding his lab coat up to his face, blood soaking into it and turning it crimson. His other hand has another ratchet strap wrapped around his fist, with the large metal buckle hanging a few inches below it. “She was…still awake.”
Lars’ eyes flash wide, and his mouth drops open in horror, then it curls into a smile. “Wonderful. She is strong.”
Michael holds up the ratchet strap’s buckle. “She might be dead now.”
Lars walks around the table to get a look at her. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”
They upright the gurney and reposition her on it. Together they adjust the strap over her chest and tighten it down, leaving it barely loose enough for her to breathe. They strap her hips down, then Lars helps Michael lace the last ratchet strap over her neck. “Finish with the zip-ties, I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He walks toward the door. “Remember to start your timer.”
Michael nods and looks down at June. She bleeds from two places on her head, but the wounds are already clotting. Soon, he knows they’ll be healed over. He looks at her broken, crooked arm. No point in resetting that for you.
He positions her arms so that her forearms run alongside the gurney’s rail. He zip-ties her at the wrists and at her elbows to the rails. He pulls her knees up and out, so that her shins lie against the gurney’s railings as well. He finishes by zip-tying her knees and ankles to the rails.
He stands, looks at her again, and tests the restraints. They’re all tight: her arms and legs start to turn purple from the loss of circulation. Perfect.
He turns around and picks up a stainless-steel tray, sliding the forceps, scalpels, and needles off it and onto the table. He holds the shiny tray up to look at his nose in the reflection. It’s crooked. Shit.
He grabs his nose with his other hand and rebreaks it—he drank some blood after killing Candace, and his nose had already started to heal in its broken position. He grits his teeth against the pain. His eyes water, and he blinks through the tears. He straightens his nose back out, then inspects it in the mirror. He sighs and tosses the tray onto the counter. Good enough.
Lars climbs back up the ladder that he was on when Michael called his name. He turns a few valves, holds his breath, and removes the hoses from a pressurized container. A small amount of aerosol escapes the valve, and a buzzer sounds as a red light begins to flash. Lars descends the ladder, allows himself to breathe again, and sets the canister down. He picks up a different one, labeled O2, and returns up the ladder.
When he attaches it, the red light stops blinking, and the buzzing silences.
Down the hall, he sits at a computer station that looks different from all the others. He logs in and navigates to a special application, then runs it. The screen goes blank except for a single line along the top:
Initiate lockdown procedures and anti-zombie measures? (Y/N):
A cursor flashes, awaiting input. Lars looks at his watch, smiles that’s he’s slightly ahead of schedule, then resets the chronometer to zero. He looks back at the screen, pauses another moment, then closes his eyes. Finally. A smile crosses his lips as he opens his eyes.
He types in “Y” and presses the enter key. He starts his chronometer.
Everywhere within the Pentagon, a siren screams. Thick security doors slide and lock into place, sealing all entrances and exits. People in the halls and in the hundreds of rooms inside the massive building freeze and wait for an announcement.
When the Pentagon’s emergency doors slide shut and seal it off from its metro station and the above-ground bus depot, a man in a business suit with an ID lanyard in one hand and an overpriced coffee in the other kicks the thick metal of the door with his toe. “C’mon? What the hell?”
“That was close.”
He turns to a woman who is leaving the Pentagon, who just scooted through the doors as they were closing. He motions past the door. “What’s going on in there?”
She shrugs. “Not a clue.”
“Damn. I was late, and now I’m probably fired.”
She tilts her head as she walks away. “Enjoy your coffee.”
Inside the Pentagon, a prerecorded announcement blares through the speakers. “Attention, lockdown procedures have been initiated. Immediate zombie threat detected. Aerosol inoculation commencing. Prepare for nausea and drowsiness.”
There is some commotion as people scramble to wherever they consider to be a more ideal place to be, but they do so in a relatively orderly fashion. They are all professionals, after all. The sophisticated ventilation systems of the Pentagon now begin releasing the pressurized aerosol that Dr. Melgaard and his team specially prepared.
Thanks to the building’s advanced environmental controls and safety mechanisms, the entire Pentagon complex—except for Dr. Melgaard’s lab—is flooded with a thin mist.
His lab gets a slight but enjoyable boost in oxygen levels.
In the chapel, most of the High Council, and select other elders: Señor Raúl Lucas, Señora C
armella Diaz, and Mrs. Katherine Reichenberg of the War and Defense Cabinet, as well as Gerard Dziedzic—on special invitation from his friend Raúl—all look to their U.S. Marine tour guide, Sergeant Graham. He turns and raises both hands up as he talks to the vampires. “I’m sure everything will be okay, please remain calm. We will stay here and await further instructions.”
Everyone in the room inhales the sweet-smelling, mist-laden air and begins to feel drowsy. The marine doubles over, and while he tries as hard as he can to not get sick in that room, he still feels it coming. He quickly takes off his uniform’s jacket and lays it on the floor. He vomits into it, instead of disgracing the room of the memorial.
Hamid calls everyone’s attention to him. “We will all stay together until after this threat is dealt with. I uh-mmm… I feel very tired now.” His mouth hangs open, and he looks toward Vincent, who nods loosely and blinks his eyes hard in disbelief.
One of the vampires slumps against the wall and falls over, asleep. The rest quickly sit down, then they are all knocked out by the sevoflurane—a common, volatile anesthetic with a fast onset and offset—that Dr. Melgaard added to the serum being released into the air.
Captain Rojas of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency is just leaving the Pentagon Athletic Center when the siren blasts and the security doors seal shut behind him. When he hears the announcement from the loudspeakers mounted on the building, he sprints to his car where he has a radio.
By the time he gets inside the car and he fires up the radio, there’s already a lot of chatter. It’s all from Pentagon Force Protection Agency officers that are outside the building; no one from inside the building is responding to any calls.
He punches a couple buttons and holds down the transmission button. “This is Captain Rojas of the PFPA, I repeat this is Captain Rojas of the PFPA. Clear this channel of all chatter. Everyone will continue their assigned duties until new commands are given. I repeat, clear this channel and continue performing your duties until new commands are given. I will personally investigate the situation. Stand by. Out.”