by Brent Abell
“Yes. We can do that immediately. Are you sure? Are you coming down to sign off on it? We’ll get right to it,” Kent spoke to the other end of the line and gently laid the phone back its cradle.
Nick looked up, annoyed from the microscope, and sighed, “Now what?”
“We have to destroy all the Phoenix samples and delete the files from the computers.”
“Are they insane? You can’t erase a hard drive completely!” Nick yelled in disgust. The monkeys joined in and screeched louder than before. Each one grabbed their cages and shook at them violently.
“What do you want, computers, or take the sample vials to the incinerator?” Kent asked.
“I’m over here already, I’ll suit up and pull the samples,” Nick said. “I need to put these slides up anyway.”
Nick flicked the microscope back off and removed the slide. Shuffling off, he flipped the bird at Kent, who winked and shot one right back at him. He let off a sigh and opened the door to the sample room’s anteroom. The white containment suit hung from the hanger before the large thick metal door. Nick slipped his shoes off and began to get on the bulky suit. The suit made him feel claustrophobic, but it beat the hell out of Ebola or whatever designer virus they cooked up. Once he finished zipping up, he turned on his air supply and slid the tray with the slide into the sample unit.
The large gloves made it hard for Nick to punch in the door’s code, but after a few attempts, he managed to open the door. Inside, Nick opened his arms, and the decontamination cycle began. After the wash ended, the interlock on the last door opened. He took a step, and his oversized boots caused him to stumble. Reaching to the left, he fell into the wall and the screw on the floor they’d filed complaint after complaint about; tore the material covering his foot.
Oblivious to what happened, Nick righted himself and stepped into the sample unit.
***
Victoria’s foot tapped anxiously while the elevator made its descent to the lower level lab. To the casual eye, the elevator buttons stopped at the ground floor lobby. If one possessed the magical key, one could use it to open a panel and gain access to the super-secret buttons to get to the labs. The public knew about the labs on the upper levels, but only the top brass and the military knew what brewed beneath the concrete and steel. Markus never gave her full access to everything Xen Pharmaceuticals, but enough pieces of the puzzle crossed her desk to provide her with a pretty clear picture of her boss and his business dealings.
Under the table, where the investors couldn’t see, Xen dealt in death. Within the past twenty-four hours, Xen also started trading in the state of being undead. Xen didn’t control the world like evil corporations in zombie video games, but they did make the majority of their customers feel better from their various ailments.
The elevator dinged, and Victoria started tapping her heels together. The trip to the lower labs took a few minutes, and she realized she needed to pee.
“I hope there’s a little girl’s room down here,” she whispered.
The elevator doors opened painfully slow, and she rushed into the stark white hall and looked around. Doors lined both sides, and she glanced up and down the hall until she found the small sign with the universal symbol for the women’s restroom. Relieved, she rushed down the hall. In the quiet hallway, her heels slamming on the cold checkered tiled echoed loudly. At the end of the corridor, before she turned into the bathroom, she saw the lab she needed to visit.
But first, nature called.
***
Nick entered the sample chamber and placed his vials back in the refrigeration unit to his left. Around the room, identical types of units housed every designer virus and antibodies they’d used for experimentation. Scanning the samples, he found the slot with the Phoenix vials. Carefully, he opened the refrigerated unit and grabbed the tray with the four bottles. Each one contained the virus. Of all the different germs they’d experimented on for the military, Phoenix became the only one they never worked up an anti-body.
In the end, Nick didn’t know why destroying the samples mattered. If the virus was unleashed in the field for a live civilian test, the damage was done, and they’d all die regardless. Being the type of person who fretted a lot, the act of shrugging his shoulders was second nature. The fact he held a lethal strain of a virus responsible for the destruction of a small Indiana town failed to register in his head as the sample tray slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
The vial seemed to fall in slow motion. It turned end over end as it plummeted to the floor. Nick followed it on its downward trajectory and screamed when it shattered all over the floor. The thick orange liquid slashed across the shiny tiles and covered the side of his boot. Without thinking, he reached down and pulled at the protective covering on his foot. The orange sample smeared on his gloved hands and frantically waved it in the air. Drops of the Phoenix virus fell all around the sample room. It hit the walls, the refrigerators, and even made it to the ceiling.
Then he noticed it.
On his right foot, where the sample vial broke, he saw the tear in his boot cover. The jagged tear looked like a gaping maw slurping up the thick liquid virus. Panic set in, and he ripped off his protective gear. Every training hour for an event like this failed. First, he tossed the gloves to the side and tore the mask from his head. The cold air rushed in around his face, and he began to calm when he felt it. The sensation felt like cold fingers running down warm flesh. It gave him a chill, and the warmth washed over his foot. Immediately, he felt flush, and he took the protective suit off quickly. It only took a few moments, but even in the cold room, he felt like his insides were on fire.
***
Kent finished sending the Phoenix Project files to the trash on the computer. The bar showing the progress of the deletion seemed to take an eternity. He started to get impatient and got up to see how much longer Nick would be. Nick always seemed to slow the party up when they needed to get something done. Did he get everything finished on a Friday so they can play card games at a local shop? No, Kent played with a stack of paper clips instead of shutting the microscopes and computers down instead. Kent missed getting into a tournament that night, which he remained bitter about to this day. He knew he would’ve killed it that night. But no, Kent had to shut down the lab pretty much on his own, and they were late for the sign-ups.
Walking past the monkeys, he noticed they sat in silence. All three of them stared at the door to the sample room. Kent followed their gaze, and his mouth hung open in horror. Nick’s face pushed against the sample room’s glass window. He had moved out of the decontamination chamber and stood next to the door. His eyes had a white haze over them, and blood poured from his nose and the corners of his mouth. Pieces of skin hung from his lips, and he continued to chew on them. Each bite made the ragged lips open more fully. Gore stained his teeth, and his smile made him look extremely gleeful.
“Holy shit,” Kent muttered and back away.
In a college psychology class, Kent learned about the idea of ‘Fight or Flight.’ After a few seconds of serious consideration, his body decided on flight.
***
Victoria finished washing her hands and waved her hands under the dryer’s sensor. She stood there for a minute, water dripping from her hands, and waited for the dryer to kick on. Sighing, she waved her hands beneath the dryer again. Still, nothing happened. Letting her head hang low in defeat, she wiped her damp palms on her skirt and stormed out of the bathroom.
Something slammed hard into her as she exited into the hallway, and it happened so fast, she never saw it coming. The blow knocked her off balance, and her breath left her body when the floor caught her.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” the man standing over her stammered.
Victoria looked up, and he kept looking back behind him. His gaze stopped on her for a moment, and she saw fear looking back at her. His face appeared to be white as a sheet, and he trembled.
&nbs
p; “I’m okay,” she stated flatly.
“Sorry,” the man said sheepishly and held his hand out to her.
“Who are you?” Victoria asked as the man helped her to her feet.
“I’m Kent Barnes. I work in the lab.”
“The lab? Good, I need to get there now,” Victoria said.
Kent started shaking his head. “No, no, no. I’m not going back there.”
“I have orders to ensure all the computers in the lab are clean of all files.” Victoria noticed the man shaking.
“It has, I swear,” he replied.
“I want proof.”
“Not a good idea right now,” Kent replied.
“Why not?”
Tears formed in the corner of his dark brown eyes. His expression made Victoria think about how a deer must look before you shoot it. Whatever he hid from her scared the shit out of him, and she grew concerned.
“It got loose.” His voice sounded distant and hollow. All feelings he talked with before vanished as the three words escaped his lips.
“What. Got. Loose?” Victoria asked, rather bluntly.
“Phoenix.”
Oh, shit, Victoria thought. Her mind raced with all the potential problems and terrible outcomes this bit of news meant.
Victoria began to walk toward the lab. Kent grabbed her by the arm and stopped her. She turned and glared at him for touching her.
“We can’t go down there. He’s waiting.”
“Who is waiting?”
Kent let go of her arm. “Nick is waiting, and I don’t think I can look at what it did to him again.”
***
Gilbert Dodson sighed and opened the door to the lower level lab in the secret basement of Xen Pharmaceuticals. All he wanted to do was sit in the office and ignore the surveillance monitors long enough to catch up on his soap operas. The seclusion of the secret basement security office gave him the privacy Gilbert needed to indulge in something his wife didn’t even know. He almost let it slip last week when she commented on a storyline on The Hospital, and he stopped before commenting. He lived a macho life, and he didn’t need the static that would come with the revelation he watched the daily shows.
Today, Jody was in the process of leaning in to kiss Dr. Brand when the alarms started sounding for the lab. He hated the two assholes who worked in there. Kent and that Nick shithead was the worst thing about his job. He shuddered to think about what life would be like if they found out his love for the soaps. He figured he’d end up having to kill them. It was a small price to pay for their silence.
The elevator dinged, and the door slowly slid open. The secret levels were three heavily guarded floors beneath the regular building’s basement, and a person could only access them from a secret key compartment in the elevator control panel. His office was at the top of the three floors, and the lab on the bottom one. At first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
“Those punks better not be fucking with me,” he sighed and headed down the hallway to the lab.
He strolled to the lab door and froze. Bloody handprints streaked the white surface, and pools of it covered the tile floor. Drawing his gun from its holster, he pushed the door open with it and looked around. Inside, papers littered the tile, and the monkey cages were open wide. Bits of fur and meat hung from the bars, and crimson ran from them like a waterfall. He got closer and saw their twisted bodies covered in bite marks and missing big chunks out of their backs. One head gazed up at him with a dead expression and one eye hanging to the left, plucked from the socket.
Bile rose in the back of his throat, and he reached for his radio when something crashed near the lab’s rear.
***
Markus listened to every excuse General Harris threw at him. The live trial for the Phoenix wasn’t supposed to happen yet. Initially, the plan was to release a small sample of the virus into the water of some village in the jungle somewhere. Once they had studied Phoenix in the field, they could eliminate everyone and burn the town in such a way the local warlords would’ve been to blame.
No. Instead, the test happened in an American city. If word got out testing of a viral agent occurred on American soil, they’d be finished, and the president would be facing impeachment. Markus knew he’d be the scapegoat. Every good cover-up in American history needed its patsy, and the foreign-born CEO of a dreaded pharmaceutical company would get blamed without blinking an eye.
“I was under orders, Markus. Even with my title, I still have people I answer to,” Harris said.
“The trial in Middletown has left us all exposed. What if someone traces back the package to the university? What if the trail leads to you and your idiot-in-chief?” Markus screamed into the phone.
Harris remained silent on the other end. He let the words wash over him. In the end, Markus and his company would pay, and Harris would still be a general. Also, he knew his silence infuriated Markus.
“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?” Markus spat.
On the other end, Harris tried to remain stoic, and above the fray, Markus kept trying to drag him into the fight. Harris saw Markus’s type of madness when one of the scientists on the base blew his brains out all over his office wall. The mess had been a slight inconvenience, but he figured the guilt over his role in Middletown ate away at his soul. Harris knew he’d still sleep if he could ever get the bastard off the other end of the line.
“Markus, if you follow the protocol we put in place, you have nothing to worry about in the end. Destroy the remaining samples and erase the computers. Hell, don’t you have a new set of computers to swap out with?” Harris asked.
“I know the protocol. My assistant is seeing to the deeds now. The computers will be sent to the Center, and the samples will be gone.”
“You didn’t begin replication yet?” Harris queried.
“No, they ordered me to wait on the field trials,” Markus answered.
“Good, now you have work to do if you want to survive this,” Harris quipped. His voice held a victorious tone. Over the phone line, he could hear the veins popping out of Markus’s forehead, and it pleased him. Secretly, he knew the bastard would get his. His plans were already in motion.
“I’ll get back with you when the CPU s are about to head to the Center,” Markus huffed.
“You do that,” Harris said and hung up.
Harris leaned back in his chair, and a broad grin came across Harris’s face. He didn’t get this far without a contingency plan, and it had already started to play out.
***
Gilbert only carried a gun because his duty pertained to the top-secret lab area. He always pictured himself as James Bond rushing through the labs and shooting at Russian spies trying to steal the latest designer virus, but now he hated all the thoughts he harbored about action and adventure. The gun shook in his grasp, and he proceeded to where the sounds had originated. The dead specimens in the cages made the hair rise on the back of his neck. Another crash sounded out, and then the lab turned deathly silent again.
“Ugh,” a voice came from where the glass shattered. It sounded garbled and pained. To Gilbert, it seemed like something he’d heard in a movie on the late-night horror shows. His grip tightened on the pistol tightened, and his hands began turning white.
“Who’s there?” he called out.
Nothing answered him.
“I’m armed, and I have a license to kill,” he yelled out. After it left his lips, he knew it sounded ridiculous, but he couldn’t take it back. Movies were too ingrained in his vernacular not to throw what he considered an amusing quote in the mix from time to time.
Although now, he didn’t laugh or think himself cute.
The lab had an ‘L’ shape. The main area and the sample room were part of one long section, while the supply/equipment storage area took a turn to the left. The noises Gilbert heard came from the storage portion of the lab. He listened to a low moan that grew louder and more visceral. In the end, it took the sound of an angry a
nimal growling. Footsteps followed, and Gilbert froze. He pointed his gun toward the sounds. The steps were slow. Each one brought a new jolt of fear to Gilbert. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down his face. The salty drops ran into his eyes, and he blinked rapidly to stop the burning sensation.
“I want you to step out with your hands up over your head,” Gilbert stammered.
For a moment, the steps stopped but started again. In the silent lab, the footsteps echoed, and Gilbert held his breath. He forced his eyes to stay open and took a step toward the corner. The person on the other side would take one step, hesitate, and then step with the other foot.
“Kent? Nick? You guys better not be messing around with me. I’ll have them take your jobs for this,” Gilbert said. He tried to sound brave, but the wavering in his words betrayed him.
Gilbert stood his ground and waited for a response. The steps continued, and finally, a shadow turned the corner followed by another moan. Unable to wait any longer, Gilbert gathered his courage and stormed around the corner.
“Shit, Nick…,” Gilbert said and chuckled. “You gave me quite a scare there for a moment.”
Nick reached out and grabbed Gilbert’s arm. Gilbert looked down at his arm in surprise and tried to jump back. Nick’s grip tightened. His nails dug into Gilbert’s flesh, and blood welled up to the surface.
“Let go!” Gilbert shouted. He looked into Nick’s eyes and saw the white film covering them. Nothing of his usual blue eyes remained under the white.
Then like a snake, Nick struck at Gilbert. His teeth found their mark and tore a strip of Gilbert’s cheek off. Gilbert screamed and shook his head violently around. His bite left behind an orange fluid mixed with his blood on the guard’s face. It absorbed into the exposed cheek, and Gilbert felt his face begin to burn. Nick sniffed the air and released his grip on Gilbert. Starting his shuffle again, Nick moved past Gilbert and headed toward the lab’s exit. Gilbert dropped to the floor, screaming and, after a few minutes, fell silent.