Now it was Ethan who looked confused, but when realization hit, he let out a low chuckle. “Christ, you still don’t get it, do you?” He waited for my response, but when I just kept staring, he allowed himself a small, real smile. “Raleigh Miller didn’t die because of the serum, or the virus that it was based on. Sure, both kill when your body won’t adapt quickly enough to it, but that’s the end of it.” His smile grew. “But he turned, get it? The vaccine would only have protected him against the old strain, but what he was infected with, that was the pure, first-iteration zombie strain.”
My thoughts ground to a halt, my mind taking a momentary break to process this.
Raleigh had died over eighteen months before the outbreak.
But if what Ethan had just told me was right, he’d been the first ever zombie on record, independent of what the last phase of the serum did to those that had received it.
The ramifications of that weren’t something I ever wanted to consider.
They’d known. People in key positions—at the CDC, at USAMRIID, at the very biotech firm that was already working on the project—had known that there was a strain of a virus in existence that could, indiscriminately, wipe us right off the earth. The only thing needed had been a way to distribute it.
And someone, somewhere, had made damn sure to send one of their top operatives who they knew would finish the job to wipe out any and all evidence. For the first time since I’d learned that Thecla had been responsible for murdering Nate’s brother, I had a motive for the deed that made a hell of a lot more sense than misplaced professional jealousy.
Of all the times and places where I could have learned of this, now was, without a doubt, the most inconvenient of them all.
I could tell from the way Ethan jeered at me that he knew I’d come to these conclusions. That what I had become part of hadn’t been a rescue mission, or a somewhat shady attempt to put things right. It had been a cover-up. And by sending Bucky Hamilton in after Nate, whoever had set this in motion had likely counted on the fact that their personal animosities would ensure that no one walked away who could tell the tale. Only that the apocalypse had gotten in the way, and probably for the first and only time in their lives they’d managed to put their differences aside and bail, preserving all those lives that should have ended that day. Bucky had likely counted on the zombies doing the dirty work for him, seeing as Nate had been gravely injured and most of his people had abandoned him.
Now the setup at the factory made so much more sense. We, Nate and I, were still around. We both knew what had been going on at Green Fields Biotech—or at least had thought we’d known—so that made us extra inconvenient.
Shit.
No, more than that, but my mind was lacking the ability to express just how much this tiny tidbit of news really shook me up. But Ethan knew because I’d never been able to properly school my face.
Ethan had to die. Preferably before he could tell anyone else.
But I was still locked up in this fucking cell, and not exactly in the position to take anyone down.
I had to think, and fast. Somehow I got the sense that Ethan hadn’t wanted to reveal quite that much, but if anyone listened in to our conversation, or reviewed it at a later time, they might very well come to the conclusion that he’d inadvertently told me too much. It was too late to pretend that he hadn’t just turned my world upside down, but maybe I could still steer the conversation in a direction that made my epiphany seem like a small, insignificant one.
“But you have Raleigh Miller’s research data,” I said, swallowing hard to get the lump out of my throat that still threatened to choke me. “That should be enough to follow along his steps, right?” I put just enough conviction into my tone to turn it into a half-taunt. A scientist like me could do that, but was Ethan quite there yet?
Ire sparked in his eyes, making me want to cheer. He’d swallowed the bait.
“It’s not quite that simple,” he grunted. “Particularly as you didn’t get his entire research, just the notes he’d compiled along the way. He had years to get there, and one of the best-stocked laboratories in the country at his beck and call.”
“But you have a new version of the serum.”
He nodded, not without a hint of pride. My guess was that he had been involved in that somehow. “We do. We’ve reverse-engineered it from the virus.”
I wasn’t surprised that they still had some stocks frozen somewhere of the original strain—until my eyes fell on the soldier, still going at the floor that had long since lost even a hint of a bloody patina I was sure. I felt my pulse speed up while my stomach did a few weird things.
“You reverse-engineered the zombie virus? Not just modified the serum, but completely rebuilt it from the zombie virus? Are you insane?” Then again, considering what else was going on here, I should have expected it.
Ethan’s contempt for me grew once more. “It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s working. Of course there are setbacks, but that’s not unusual. We have been making great progress over the past month.” He grimaced, and it took me a moment to realize that he we was trying hard not to smile—never a good sign. “Actually, that one’s on you, too. It was only after the stunt you did as you left that I got the idea to propose that a buffering system might be key to success.”
“Buffering system?” I asked, already convinced that I didn’t want the answer to that.
“The virus itself is too deadly to be of any use to us,” he said, stating the obvious. “But as concluded from your blood test, women exposed second-hand to the initial serum accumulate massive amounts of antibodies that help stave off the progress somewhat. It’s not a perfect system as we’ve seen from our in situ tests, but in about thirty percent, the rate of infection is slowed down to less than fifty percent of the original speed.” I could vouch for that. It had taken me much longer than most to die—or close enough to count—from those bites than anyone had expected.
“But that still wasn’t enough,” Ethan went on, oblivious to where my thoughts had skipped. “We were able to harvest some antibodies that way, but they weren’t potent enough yet. So we had to fine-tune our approach.”
And that’s when I realized just how far their insanity went.
“You’re infecting the fetus,” I uttered, my voice so lifeless it came out as barely more than a whisper.
“It’s the perfect setup,” Ethan enthused, getting even more excited. “It only works if the father has already gotten inoculated before conception, or else infection would spread rapidly. There are still setbacks, of course. One in four of the mothers succumbs to the virus within the first week, but we’ve made great progress on fine-tuning our system. The natural stress-response helps steady the conditions.”
The implication of that made me sick. The fact that he could explain it with such an even voice got me considering in earnest just how long it would take me to bash my way through that glass pane.
“So, essentially what you’re saying is that you starve them, and rape them, so that their bodies remain in a state of constant crisis, to, what? Establish the perfect incubation criteria?”
“Essentially, yes. Of course we are constantly monitoring the parameters and tweaking our settings according to each individual subject,” he explained, his voice just a tad strained, but getting steadier as he went on. “Eventually, it’s impossible to retain constant conditions, and that’s when we terminate the experiment to harvest what we can. We’ve tried with the placenta first, but that proved not to be potent enough, as you can see with Banks here. But we have come a long way since then.”
He waited for a response from me, but when none came he gave a satisfied nod—as if his reasoning was so flawless that there was no room for objections from me—before he turned around and left. On the way out he tapped the solider on the shoulder and told him to follow. The remaining heap of suds was the only thing that was left behind.
Chapter 25
No more patrols followed, and ra
ther than the nurses, the guys in their hazmat gear dropped by to monitor Erica’s “progress.” Deterioration was more like it. So far the women in the other cells had been mostly quiet, but whenever she started coughing, agitated grunts and shouts rose up, creating a wonderfully cozy atmosphere all around. But maybe that was only my nerves, laid bare as they were.
Even so, Taggard returning wasn’t something that brightened my day. I was once more in my spot, and seeing him zero in on my cell made me want to hunch my shoulders and scoot back as far as possible. It took all my strength to stay where I was, but there was no faking any ease or relaxation.
He studied me for a moment, but there was none of his usual gloating going on. I didn’t let that fool me—that guy was as much a master manipulator as a psychopath. And it wasn’t like I needed much of a prompt to ignite right now. Fear lay on my mind like a blanket that was simply too heavy to lift, leaving a cloying, bad taste in my mouth. With nothing else to do I just stared at him, waiting.
Taggard seemed to be waiting, too, and when nothing came from me, he stepped back and engaged the door panel. “Let’s finish this up,” he told someone behind him as he made room.
I knew that I should have been conserving my energy, but I was on my feet and kicking at the first soldier who made it into my cell. Not that it did me much good—one kick and two swings was all I got in before they had me plastered against the wall, my face mashed into the cool tiles. Once they got a good grip on me, they hauled me out of the cell and into the middle of the room, right into that ghastly chair. Panic spiked, giving me some extra strength, but still not enough to get more than one leg free. Someone hit my temple hard enough that my body went slack for a second, and that was all the time they needed to get the thick leather restraints in place. The only thing I could still move was my head, as much good as that did me with my wrists pinned down above it. I wasn’t even worried anymore how struggling had made that damn hospital gown ride up, although the hard, cold steel under my back and parts of my ass wasn’t my idea of comfortable. Taggard was back to studying me like an insect—which, considering my position, was preferable to him leering down at me. Not quite satisfied with what he saw, he reached for a lever at the side of the contraption, and the resulting yank forced my already spread legs further apart, hard enough that for a moment I thought he’d dislocated my left hip. A pained gasp left me, but I was determined that this was going to be the only thing he got out of me.
“Really? You big boys are so afraid of me that you have to tie me down first?” I pressed out once I trusted my voice again.
Cocking his head to the side, Taggard kept letting his gaze roam over me, now with a hint of casual interest. If not for my inclined position I would have tried spitting at him. He poked at a bruise above my knee, hard enough to make me tense but not quite wince.
“That’s not for our benefit,” he told me, increasing the pressure before he let go. Two of the zombies were pounding on the glass, agitated with so much fresh meat so tantalizingly close. The other two—Gussy one of them—remained more docile. Concentrating on them was much easier than on anything else. That was until two soldiers entered the room, dragging a third one on two of those dog catcher poles behind them. The display at the very edge of my vision was distracting enough that it took me a few moments to realize that the others were backing away to make room. The soldier jerked, snapping at one of the others that still stood too close, and that was about when I realized two things. One, it was the guy who’d tried scrubbing the very concrete off in the middle of the room. And two, he was decidedly on the last leg of his journey to zombie town, or maybe already there.
That couldn’t be good.
As soon as the zombie became aware of the many people crowded into the room, it started hissing and growling, forcing its handlers to keep a good grip on the leashes. A third poked it with a cattle prod, but if the zombie felt that, it didn’t aversely react to it. It was acting kind of slow and groggy, compared to some of those I’d encountered out there, but that was the least of my concerns.
“Taggard, what the fuck?” I pressed out between gritted teeth, trying hard to keep my mounting panic at bay. “That was one of your own people. The least he deserved was a bullet between the eyes!”
Taggard briefly glanced at the zombie before he beamed a creepily cheerful smile at me. “This is where you’re wrong,” he explained. “It would be so wasteful not to try to get as much out of this situation as possible.” Cocking his head to the side, he continued to study me, as if he was committing the image of me restrained there to memory. “I’m still waiting to see you reduced to a shivering pile of nerves, rocking in a corner. Threatening you didn’t do the job. Making you directly responsible for what you consider heinous crimes against humanity didn’t do the job. And from our few pleasant conversations I’ve gleaned that not even letting my boys have a go at you will do the job and forever break your spirit. Sure, you’d need some time to come back from that, but even that whiney ass bitch over there managed to hold on to her sense of self until the very end. You challenge me, so I have to find a way to escalate things somehow. Let’s see if getting raped by a zombie will do the trick, shall we?”
The very concept was enough to make me want to piss myself—and no conscious thought was required for me to tense and try to wrench myself free, any way possible. But the restraints held, even if I managed to shake the frame of the chair a little. It was by far not enough, yet did its own to scramble my thoughts until all that was left was the overwhelming need to be free.
“You’re fucking insane!” I shouted, but cut off immediately when the zombie let out a scream, its dead eyes fixing on me. Oh great. Now it had noticed me.
Exhaling forcefully, I did my best to shove a door shut between the all-consuming fright and my working mind, silently screaming at myself that I needed to get a grip, and now, or else I was toast. Taggard watched me struggle, still behaving as if we were having a benign discussion.
“So you’re gonna do what?” I panted out, my voice pressed enough that I had trouble understanding the words that made it over my lips. “Add ‘zombie fluffer’ to your resume? Because I hate to break it to you, but if the undead fuckers are incapable of one thing, it’s actually fucking anything.” Way to go with the phrasing, but just keeping myself from hyperventilating so I wouldn’t pass out was a feat. Or maybe not. If I was wrong, this was not an experience that I needed to be conscious for.
“You sure about that?” Taggard asked, his tone teasing before a twist came to his mouth. “Or did you try yourself? I’ve heard stories that your group got down and dirty with dissecting their fair share of the undead. Did you try wanking one while the others held it down?” He leaned close enough that I could feel his breath fan over my face, making me press myself harder against the chair. “Is that the thought that keeps you awake at night? How it would feel if your lover snapped and turned, and consequently fucks you to death while he eats your face?”
Through gritted teeth I hissed, “He’s my husband, and he’d rather kill himself than let that happen!”
The grin I received for my effort was a long shot from friendly, and I was glad when Taggard straightened again and clapped his hands once, demanding everyone’s attention. The zombie made a lunge for him but the leash poles held, making it strain uselessly as it snapped its teeth. It was then that I realized that they hadn’t just restrained its hands behind the body, but that there was a lot of blood that had soaked into the uniform jacket it was still wearing. No arms meant it couldn’t grab anyone and pull them close; if not for my current position I might have applauded Taggard for being smart about this.
Except for my involvement, naturally.
“Camera is ready?” he asked one of his men, looking up at something in the corner by the door. The soldier confirmed with a sharp nod. Glancing to me, Taggard explained. “By now I don’t give a shit whether you survive or not. But it would be a shame to just waste this glorious moment and leave the
world guessing exactly what happened, and what is scientifically possible. After all, if you do survive, physically, and only that bright, big brain of yours ends up irrevocably damaged, we wouldn’t want your husband”—he stressed that word—“to have to keep guessing exactly what we did to his wife now that she can no longer tell him herself.” He let that sink in for a second before he stepped away, making room.
“You can’t do this to me!” I screamed, knowing already that it was useless, but I just needed to get the words out. I knew that senselessly pulling on my restraints wouldn’t do me any good, but it wasn’t like I could just lie there, doing nothing.
At Taggard’s barked command two of his men approached the zombie carefully to grab its pants and pull them down. As I’d expected there was nothing going strong down there, not even when the one with the cattle prod poked the zombie’s lower back twice. It did take a step forward, stumbling momentarily because of the fabric caught between its knees, but that was it. It did some more hissing and snarling, making all but the soldiers that directly controlled the zombie back away. It seemed more focused now, its eyes skipping from target to target, and twice more it tried coming for one of the soldiers. I forced myself to stop moving, even going as far as to hold my breath as long as I could. Its eyes skipped right over me but then snapped back as my chest expanded with another, much needed, inhale. Shit.
“Maybe it needs some incentive,” Taggard mused. “Get it closer so it can smell her reeking cunt. That should get it going.” His eyes skipped up to my face. “And if not, it’s as good a place as any to let it start gorging itself. Nothing going to waste there as it is.”
The soldiers with the poles shoved the zombie forward, and it took another reluctant step. I couldn’t help but flatten myself further against the chair, hair all over my body standing on end as panic made my throat close up. It was close enough now that if my legs hadn’t been tied to the stirrups of the chair I could have touched it with my toes—not that I had any intention to do so. It was hard to hold on to a single lucid thought, everything inside of me screaming to flee. Yet—again—the restraints held.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 2 | Books 4-6 Page 61