‘Don’t leave me like this,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to come back. Please, Miller.’
She didn’t have a great deal of sympathy for him after what he’d conspired to do, but she could see the intense fear in his eyes as the last moments of his natural life ebbed away.
She released the safety on the handgun and cocked it. The soldier’s eyes were closed and what looked like a smile of relief started to shape his lips just as she pulled the trigger.
5
Salty held up his hand, instructing Jason to stop moving. They waited in one of the access corridors connecting the inner and outer roadways and listened intently. The banging noises came from the storage room about thirty yards ahead of them.
Salty handed his hatchet to Jason and cocked his pistol. They crept towards the open door and Salty peered around the corner.
It was Crawford. She knelt on the ground, sliding a large five-gallon water cooler bottle from the cupboard so she could load it onto a flatbed cart, already full of canned food, blankets, bags of grain and seed. She also had an automatic weapon laying just within reach.
Salty stepped into the doorway and pointed his gun at her.
‘Goin’ somewhere nice?’ he said.
Crawford snatched up her weapon and spun around, slamming her back against the swinging doors of the cupboard.
‘Hey, easy now,’ Salty said. He released the hammer on his pistol and let go of its handle, so it was hanging from his finger by the trigger guard. ‘What’s with the alarm?’
Crawford took a breath and responded by lowering her weapon.
‘Someone opened the holding area. Those specimens will be roaming all over the west wing if they haven’t been contained.’
‘Then we need to get over there,’ Salty said.
‘Not me. I’m leaving.’
Salty noted the supplies she’d piled high on the cart and the time it must have taken her to get over from her cabin in the middle of the night.
‘You ain’t leavin’ cause of the breach. You were already on your way.’
‘I should have bounced weeks ago. Grant is weapon’s grade crazy. The whole project was finished as soon as the administration went down. The only thing we’re doing here is sitting in a hole, waiting to die.’
‘And you were just gonna leave the rest of us high and dry?’
‘Think yourselves lucky. I was supposed to confine you and everyone else to their quarters so Grant could perform some kind of sick experiment on your psychic friend.’
Salty’s frown deepened and he flipped the pistol into his grip, pulling the hammer back again.
‘What have they done with him?’
‘McCaffrey took him to the labs—right next to the breach,’ Crawford said.
‘You’re gonna take us there.’
‘No fucking way. I’m outta here,’ she said, raising her weapon.
‘You may not have been onboard with this, but you knew what they were plannin’ and said jack shit about it when you had the chance. That makes you responsible. Now you’re gonna help us get our people back. If that happens, we all fly outta here together. It’s either that or we both shoot each other up in here. Your choice.’
Jason held his position behind Salty, gripping the hatchet’s handle like his life depended on it.
Crawford thought about his ultimatum. She may have even considered pulling the trigger and taking her chances, but eventually, she backed down.
‘All right then. We’ll need some firepower if we’re gonna get to the labs with those things on the loose,’ Salty said.
‘McCaffrey and Grant are the only ones with passcodes to the armoury,’ Crawford said.
‘Great. Fuck!’
‘Hey, I just fly the bird, OK. The armoury may be off limits, but I still have a few guns at my cabin.’
‘Let’s haul ass.’
Crawford got to her feet and cast a longing glance to the supplies on the flatbed.
‘That’ll just slow us down,’ Salty said. ‘Besides, there won’t be much room for that shit now. You’ll have passengers.’
6
Father Edwards was so at one with his ‘Good Book’, he’d lost all sense of time and direction. He’d managed to wander from the living quarters all the way along the main east corridor completely unchallenged by the living or the dead.
A veil of sweat seeped through his clothing, painting his black shirt to his neck and shoulders like it was a second skin. His body shook with every fearful step. He expected to be attacked and consumed by the demons that wandered the facility or those that haunted his mind at any moment. Occasionally, he would gaze down to the open pages to remind himself whereabouts in the verse he was, having to shout in order to hear his own voice over the piercing siren.
‘And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given unto them and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God.’
As Edwards turned into the next corridor, he saw over a dozen of the dead, still forcing themselves up against the front of med bay. He found it hard to see through the dirt on the glass, but Darla appeared on the other side. She was crouched at the back of the room, doing her best to stay out of sight. She noticed him and waved her hands to get his attention.
Edwards dodged back around the corner. He started to hyperventilate, raising his closed bible up and pressing it into his forehead. He shut his eyes so he could focus on reciting the words from memory.
‘And which had not… and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.’
‘Who is it?’ O.B. said, crawling from beneath the bed.
‘The priest,’ Darla said.
‘You mean the guy who shot me? Great!’
‘I need to make somethin’. A sign I can hold up,’ Darla said.
‘There’s a whiteboard up there on the wall.’
Sure enough, to the right of O.B.’s bed was a whiteboard and a black felt-tipped pen attached to a holder on its frame.
Darla wasted no time. She rushed over to it and snatched it away, landing on the floor next to her friend.
‘Make sure you write in big letters,’ O.B. said.
She removed the cap from the marker and proceeded to stare at the blank board.
‘What are you waiting for?’
‘I’m not sure how to spell it,’ Darla said.
‘It’s OK. Let me.’ O.B. carefully took the pen from her hand and began to write with broad strokes.
After whispering the final line of his current verse from Revelations, Edwards peered around the wall again and stared into the low light of the treatment room. He saw movement and realised it was Darla. She stood up, exposing herself to the creatures who were trying to get inside and held the whiteboard high above her head, angled in his direction.
He squinted to try and read the capitalised letters. It formed one word: ‘DISTRACTION’.
Edwards took cover, his anxiety racing to new heights with the realisation of what was being asked of him. His fear would have him take off down the corridor he’d used to get there. He also knew this same fear had caused him to shoot O.B. out on the road and that was the reason O.B. and Darla were currently trapped.
He gazed over to the opposite wall to the powder-based fire extinguisher fixed to a bracket, and, for better or worse, he made his decision.
The extinguisher didn’t shift from the first tug, but on his second attempt, he lifted it slightly and freed it from its housing. He slipped his bible into his pocket, held the cylinder in both hands and slammed it against the cold concrete. The metal clunk echoed down to the medical bay, but it didn’t seem to raise any interest in the dead, who were still excited by the brief glimpse of Darla.
He tried again more forcefully, and a third time, until the first creature removed its hands fro
m the glass and turned to face in the direction of the clanging.
With every chime of his makeshift bell, one or two of the herd reacted to its call. Buoyed by his success, Edwards went to town on the wall with a smile on his face. He swung the extinguisher with so much enthusiasm, he chipped most of the paint from its base.
All but one of the creatures were now clear of the medical bay’s front and Darla had already removed the cart from behind the door and helped O.B. to the entrance.
Edwards’ satisfaction quickly turned to anguish when he realised the herd was descending on him. He reeled backwards, ready to turn and head for the living quarters.
Darla forced the straggler at the med bay into the adjacent wall and then smashed it over the head with a piece of bed frame she’d salvaged as an improvised weapon. She saw that the priest was about to be swarmed and shouted to him.
‘Use the extinguisher on them. Pull the pin!’
Edwards inserted his thumb through the loop of the safety pin and snatched it from between the operating levers. He then grabbed the dispenser hose and aimed it towards the oncoming creature.
The cloud of white powder sprayed out with a crisp hiss and coated the dead’s face and shoulders. It seemed to send it into a temporary state of disorientation, rocking it backwards. The phosphate clung to its skin, blinding it just long enough for Edwards to evade its grasping hands.
‘Now run to us,’ Darla said.
Edwards was able to repeat the strategy on every one of the dead he faced until he could weave his way to the medical bay without so much as a scratch.
He glanced behind him to admire his handiwork - the creatures lost and colliding with each other amidst the white fog—before Darla caught him by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him with her.
‘We’ll have to double-back to get to the living quarters. That’s the only way out,’ she said.
They tried to move as quickly as possible, but with O.B.’s inexperience on crutches, the winding stretches of corridor leading to the alternative entrance to the scientific sector seemed to go on forever.
On their way, they passed by the two creatures that Raine had dealt with.
‘One of the others has been through here,’ Darla said.
‘On their way to the labs?’ O.B. said.
‘Looks like.’
To their dismay, when they reached the final stretch of corridor leading to the communal lab area, they were confronted by a group of dead at least fifty-strong. The main herd that had continued on past the medical bay had wandered in a clockwise direction, entering the laboratory’s main entrance and out through its second one.
They were sandwiched between two groups—not knowing exactly how many were still waiting for them if they turned around and retraced their route.
Both O.B. and Edwards started to shuffle back, but Darla stood her ground.
‘We push on,’ she said defiantly. ‘Stay between the two of us.’ She pulled O.B. to the middle and Edwards did as he was instructed on the other side, raising the extinguisher, ready to lay down a fog of confusion upon their enemy.
‘There’s too many of them,’ O.B. said.
‘Hey!’ Darla grabbed him by the front of his shirt. ‘We’re gonna make it to that door, OK?’
‘OK.’
O.B. could see her determination, a fire he hadn’t seen in her since she’d been in withdrawal.
Darla set the tone of how they would proceed by racing to the creature at the head of the group and caving in its skull with her crude cudgel.
Edwards hit the next one with a blast from the extinguisher. It fell backwards, crashing into two more and taking them down with it.
Darla lashed out wildly to create a passage through the hungry mob, having to fend off the snapping jaws of a creature and pushing it away, even in her weakened state.
O.B.’s lack of mobility and inability to defend himself made the gauntlet they were running more perilous, but every time one of the dead attempted to grab him, Edwards sprayed their faces to force them back.
Halfway along the corridor, the extinguisher let out a tired wheeze and the powder only projected a few inches from the nozzle. The creature Edwards was targeting ignored it and lunged in to take a bite out of him. He flipped the canister and thrust its base into its face, knocking out several of its rotten teeth and flooring it in the process.
Darla struck another one down and saw that there were ten or so more between them and the door.
Edwards was forced to grapple with another corpse and lost his grip on the extinguisher. Darla came to his aid and smashed it over the head while the priest held it in place.
‘You take him and you move as fast as you can for the door,’ Darla said.
Edwards nodded and put his arms around O.B. to support him.
Darla turned and locked eyes with her friend.
‘Don’t look back,’ she said. She threw herself at the remaining group, pushing them back enough to clear the way.
‘No,’ O.B. shouted, trying to hobble after her.
Edwards pulled him away and directed him towards their route to safety and O.B. was too unsteady to do anything about it.
Darla fought like a caged animal, swinging her weapon about her. It wasn’t long before she had a bite taken out of her, tearing the flesh of her scrawny shoulder. She spun around and smashed her attacker in the face.
She had managed to either knock back or distract the majority, but there were still two standing between O.B., Edwards and the door.
Edwards kicked one square in the chest and put it on the floor. The other one grabbed O.B.’s bandaged leg and went in to take a chunk out of it.
Darla pounced before it could sink its teeth. She held the creature at bay, blood oozing down her back.
‘Go!’ she screamed.
O.B. reached out to her, but Edwards shoved him on until they were able to get behind the safety of the lab door.
Surrounded and still fighting, Darla used every ounce of strength to get to her feet again.
O.B. pressed his face against the glass of the door and saw his friend in her last throes of defiance as the hungry horde descended. Being so small and malnourished, they pulled her to pieces within seconds. O.B.’s screams were blunted by the barrier between them, and luckily for him, so were Darla’s. He dropped his crutches and slid to the floor, heartbroken.
‘Not again, not again,’ he sobbed.
Acutely aware of how penned in they would be if another group were to wander into their section of the lab, Edwards approached him tactfully and held out his hand.
‘Come on, son. She wouldn’t want you to stop now.’
The priest knew little about her or any of their group, but this time he was right. She wouldn’t want him to give up.
O.B. sucked in his grief, took hold of Edward’s wrist, and rose with the help of one of his crutches, careful not to look back to the feeding frenzy in the other room.
7
Ethan opened his eyes to the sight of the fresh dressing around his right forearm. The almond-shaped blood stain that was soaking through it forced him to recall the cruel procedure he’d been subjected to.
He saw Grant pacing up and down in front of him to the sound of the pulsing siren.
The squeaking of shoe soles on the floor drew his attention to Osgood. The wounded doctor’s legs kicked out as if he were trying to swim. He stared up at Foster and then to the dirty gun blast that had rearranged his guts and his colleague’s two hands applying pressure to it.
‘W-what am I doing here?’ Ethan said, his voice coarse and thin.
Grant turned around and greeted him with an excited twitch of his cheek.
‘You’re awake! Nothing to worry about. I’ve dressed the wound and made sure there’ll be no surface infections. Once it’s had chance to heal, the scar will barely be noticeable.’
‘You infected me.’
‘When Donald has dealt with our
little disturbance, you and I are going to set about changing the course of human history,’ Grant said.
Even in his semi-conscious haze, the words got through and Ethan started to laugh. At least, he attempted to, but it hurt his chest to do so.
‘I hate to piss on your chips, doctor, but that happened already,’ he said.
‘Of course. And through you, we are going to learn how to adapt to that change.’
On the floor behind them, Osgood gripped Foster’s hand so tightly, she feared he might break one of her fingers. Fortunately, the blood covering them caused his grasp to slip.
‘Hang in there, Ken,’ she said.
He managed a pained smile and then looked down to his feet.
‘I don’t think I can feel my legs anymore.’
Foster turned to Grant.
‘I think the bullet may have damaged his liver—maybe his spine. We have to get him to the med bay now.’
‘I’m keenly aware of Mr. Osgood’s plight and its urgency,’ Grant replied. ‘Even if you can’t believe I care personally for his well-being, you at least understand how important I know he is to the project. As soon as Donald returns, we will go straight there and deal with whatever complications he has.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Grant, look at him! He won’t last another half-hour in this state.’
‘We can’t leave the test subject unguarded,’ Grant said.
‘Just give him the shot and let him go,’ Foster said.
Grant refused to answer her or even look at her or his dying colleague.
Foster wanted to get to her feet and shake him, ask him where the man she’d admired for so long had gone, whose mind she had fallen in love with. Then she noticed the handgun on the workbench McCaffrey had left behind for Grant to protect himself with.
She felt a weak tug on her lab coat. Osgood pushed the syringe of serum he’d tried to inject Ethan with into her hand. He nodded to her in acknowledgement and she slipped it into her pocket before Grant could see the transaction.
Everything Dies [Season Two] Page 21