by Tim Waggoner
“There are many different ani—”
His voice cut off with a wet choking sound and his eyes went wide.
Without thinking, Dominic rushed toward the boy. “Get out of the way!” he shouted, and Callan’s classmates obeyed, expressions of shock and surprise on their faces. Callan’s eyes were filled with absolute terror as Dominic reached the boy, stepped behind him, and wrapped his arms around his waist. He made a fist with one hand, then made a quick upward and inner thrust into the boy’s abdomen. Nothing happened, so Dominic performed the procedure a second time, still with no result. Dominic felt himself starting to panic, and he clamped down on the emotion hard. Callan needed him to remain calm right now, and that was precisely what he would do. Time enough to fall apart later—after he’d saved Callan’s life. Dominic performed the maneuver again, and this time the peanut that had been lodged in Callan’s throat flew out of the boy’s mouth, arced through the air, and hit the floor with a soft plink. Relief flooded through Dominic, and as he gently lowered Callan to the floor, he said, “You’re going to be all right, son. Don’t worry.” But as soon as he said these words, he knew they were premature. The boy’s face had turned waxy and pale, and his body was bucking and heaving, almost as if he were having some sort of seizure.
Rachel stepped over to them and crouched next to Callan.
“He’s not breathing!” she said.
That’s when Dominic remembered: the boy was asthmatic. Choking on the peanut must have triggered an attack, causing his throat to swell and making it impossible for him to draw in air. But that couldn’t be right, could it? His parents had notified the school that Callan had been taking a new treatment for his condition, one that was supposed to eradicate it entirely. Had the treatment failed? Or had there been more than one peanut lodged in his throat and he was still choking?
The other boys crowded around the three of them, motivated by concern, fear, and morbid curiosity.
“Get back,” Rachel snapped at them. “Give him room.”
The other passengers watched in helpless concern as Dominic slipped off Callan’s backpack, opened it, and quickly searched through the contents for an inhaler. But there wasn’t one. The boy was even paler now, and the terror in his gaze was dimming, slowly being replaced by a blackness that told Dominic he didn’t have much time left. His body stopped convulsing and fell still, no longer able to keep up with its exertions without a fresh supply of oxygen.
If the boy couldn’t breathe on his own, Dominic would just have to try and breathe for him. He knelt next to Callan’s neck and shoulders, bent over, took hold of the boy’s chin with one hand, tilted his head, and with the thumb and forefinger of the other hand he pinched the boy’s nose shut. He then lowered his face to Callan’s and pressed his lips to the boy’s open mouth. When he thought the seal was tight, he gave a short breath lasting one second, then glanced sideways to check if Callan’s chest rose. It didn’t, so he gave the boy a second breath. Still no result.
Callan’s eyes fluttered and then closed, and then Dominic was nearly overcome by a wave of despair. He feared the worst, but he couldn’t give up on the boy. They were nearly halfway through their journey to the top of the mountain. Two-and-a-half minutes, three at the most, and they’d be there, and they could summon medical aid. A doctor or at the very least a staff member who was better trained in life-saving techniques than Dominic was. If he could get some air into Callan, even just a little, it could mean the difference between life and death for the boy. He inhaled and prepared to deliver another breath into Callan.
But before he could do so, the boy’s eyes snapped open. The whites had become fiery red, and the irises were now an eerie bright blue that almost seemed to glow with internal light. Dominic barely had time to register this bizarre transformation before Callan let out an animalistic snarl, opened his mouth wide, and clamped his teeth down on Dominic’s lips. Blood gushed from Dominic’s savaged flesh, spilling onto Callan’s face like thick, crimson rain. The pain was excruciating, and Dominic tried to cry out in agony. Reflexively, he tried to pull away from the boy, but Callan’s teeth were sunk too deeply into his lips. With surprising strength, the boy grabbed hold of Dominic’s head to prevent him from trying to escape, and then he bit down harder, sawing his teeth back and forth, and whipping his head furiously, as if he were a dog trying to tear a hunk of meat from a bone. Tears streamed down Dominic’s face, and he flailed at Callan, punching and slapping in a desperate attempt to force the boy to release him. But the blows seemed to have no effect on the boy whatsoever.
Dominic heard a wet tearing sound then, and his head snapped back, the sudden motion freeing him from Callan’s grip. He scrambled to his feet and backed away unsteadily. The boy moved into a crouching position, unearthly eyes fixed on Dominic, grinning with blood-slick teeth as he chewed Dominic’s lips and then swallowed.
Horrified, Dominic reached a trembling hand to his mouth, but his fingers found only blood and exposed teeth. His stomach dropped once more.
Callan’s attack had happened so fast that the other passengers could only watch in stunned silence. But now Rachel screamed, and Callan’s head snapped toward her, as if he were an animal that had suddenly become aware of fresh prey.
Like a lion, Dominic thought, feeling numb, detached, and more than a little insane at that moment. Or a leopard. The ancient predators of Africa might have been extinct on Table Mountain, but that was okay. They were bringing an entirely new type of predator to take their place.
Callan—or rather, the thing Callan had become—leaped to his feet, snarled, and rushed toward Rachel, hands outstretched, fingers curled into claws, teeth gnashing and snapping, eager to tear into her soft flesh. Callan attacked her with inhuman ferocity and she shrieked in terror and agony. The paralysis that had gripped the rest of the passengers broke then, and everyone began screaming, shouting, and sobbing, huddling together and pressed against the car’s windows in a desperate attempt to get as far away from Callan as possible. Not that it would do any good, Dominic thought, fingertips moving back and forth over his exposed teeth.
Rachel died quickly, and Callan rushed toward the next person closest to him—one of his fellow students. Dominic looked away as the boy screamed and turned his attention toward the window. The rotating floor turned him toward his beloved mountain, and the view was so beautiful, so comforting, that he would’ve smiled if he still possessed lips. He continued gazing out the window as he listened to one person after another die, until there was silence. He realized then that he was the only one still alive, but he knew that wouldn’t be the case much longer.
He told himself that if he had to die, he couldn’t think of a better place to do it. But then Callan leaped upon him, and all thoughts were driven from his mind as the boy tore into his abdomen with hands and teeth and began pulling out fistfuls of internal organs.
A good place to die? Perhaps. But a good way to die?
Not even close.
* * *
The incident was quickly covered up. It never became public…
But in their own secret internal investigation, Umbrella discovered that the little boy in Africa had been taking a Progenitor Cell product to treat his asthma. When he choked to death, the Progenitor Cells within his body continued to work. They replaced their dying host, reanimating dead cells and bringing him back to life. The first of the Undead were born.
In the aftermath of the incident, the two founders of the Umbrella Corporation argued furiously. Marcus now saw the Progenitor Cell as dangerous and wanted it to be contained or destroyed. Dr. Isaacs, on the other hand, wished to profit from it. There was a deadlock. But the untimely accidental death of Marcus meant that the course was set.
* * *
“Why can’t you see reason? Don’t you understand what we have here?”
Alexander Isaacs paced in front of the desk where his so-called partner sat watching him. Marcus’s face was set in a resolute expression, which infuriated Isaacs,
and he fought to keep his emotions under control. He prided himself on maintaining a façade of calm at all times—it was an effective way to keep opponents from guessing one’s true intentions—but inside he was a roiling cauldron of fury.
“I know what we don’t have,” Marcus said softly. “We don’t have a universal cure.”
Marcus had only the single desk lamp on, leaving most of the study cloaked in gloom. Typical of the man to brood in near darkness, Isaacs thought. He always had been something of a drama queen. Marcus had a fondness for modernist architecture, and the interior of his home reflected that preference. The walls, ceilings, and floors were painted white, and everything was all straight lines and sharp angles. What wasn’t white was chrome or glass, and rectangular windows filled entire walls. Isaacs hated the house’s cold sterility. It seemed more suited to a laboratory than a home, but he supposed it suited Marcus’s personality: all intellect and no emotion. James Marcus was a man to whom passion was a foreign emotion, something other people felt and acted upon. Except when it came to his daughter, who he would do anything to protect.
Maybe Isaacs could use that.
“Our Progenitor Cell worked wonders for your daughter,” he said, giving a slight emphasis to our.
“At what cost? You know what happened in Cape Town. You saw the footage captured by the car’s security cameras.” Marcus shook his head as if trying to keep the images of the Cape Town massacre at bay.
Isaacs didn’t share his partner’s distaste for the footage. Where Marcus saw nightmarish savagery, blood, and death, Isaacs saw possibilities. Keeping the incident out of the media hadn’t been easy, but they’d managed. The corporation had needed to work swiftly—and ruthlessly—to accomplish the task. The cable car operator at the top of the mountain had been smart enough not to open the Rotair car’s door when it arrived. The car’s blood-smeared windows had given him a clear indication that something was wrong—not to mention the several dozen ravening lunatics inside that snarled and snapped as they clawed at the windows to get at the operator. He’d turned off power to the car, summoned the police, and waited nervously for them to arrive. Once they did, they fired every round of ammunition they had into the car, only dropping the murderous savages when they finally resorted to headshots.
Once Umbrella had gotten wind that Progenitor Cell technology had been involved in the incident, they’d moved to commandeer the bodies, obtain all records, and pay off those witnesses who could be bought and remove those who couldn’t be bribed. Marcus had no idea that the corporation he’d helped create had, in its own way, acted as savagely as the afflicted passengers on the cable car. But then Marcus had never had the stomach for dealing with the harsher aspects of running an international business. He left that to Isaacs, and he, in turn, delegated the real dirty work to someone who not only possessed the talent for it, but also an undeniable enthusiasm.
Marcus continued. “The same biological agent that transformed an asthmatic child in Cape Town into a bloodthirsty monster is inside my daughter—inside everyone who’s used one of the products developed from the Progenitor Cell—and it’s lying there, harmless at the moment perhaps, but just waiting to go off, like a ticking time bomb.”
Marcus’s expression deepened into an angry scowl.
“And you not only think we should continue to keep these products on the market, you want to begin exploring military applications? Are you insane?”
Isaacs bristled inwardly at Marcus’s words, but he kept his tone even as he replied.
“We had no way of knowing the cells would continue to be active after death—or that they’d struggle to repair the body in their imperfect way.”
Marcus snorted at that, but he didn’t interrupt, so Isaacs went on.
“The fact that the Progenitor Cell is active after death is something of a miracle, James. If we can perfect it, we’ll be able to heal all but the most catastrophic injuries. Who knows? We might even be able to attain one of humankind’s most long sought-after goals: immortality itself.”
Marcus looked at Isaacs for a long moment before speaking.
“For a moment you almost sounded like the man I began working with all those years ago. A man who truly believed in what we were attempting to do.”
“I’m the same man, James. I’m just more… pragmatic now.”
“The end justifies the means, eh?” Marcus said, a bitter edge to his voice.
“Of course not,” Isaacs lied. He’d indeed come to believe that if a goal was important enough, you should take whatever measures were necessary to achieve it. Progress itself was what was important, not how that progress was achieved. “But despite the corporation’s profits, we need outside funding in order to conduct our research. Or have you forgotten that? The money we receive from developing the Progenitor Cell’s military applications will result in advances that will make a difference in the lives of every man, woman, and child on the planet. It will change the very course of history.”
“And how, precisely, do you think aiding the military in the creation of Undead cannibalistic shock troops will help the world?”
Isaacs’ jaw tightened at the sarcasm that dripped from Marcus’s words.
“That’s not what the military wants. They’re interested in developing soldiers that are resistant to injury, who can heal so swiftly and completely that death cannot stop them. Human soldiers, James, with their mental faculties intact. That’s the true potential of the Progenitor Cell, and that’s the future—and the ultimate legacy—of the Umbrella Corporation.”
More lies. Yes, the military was intrigued by the idea of rapidly healing solders. But what they were most interested in was being able to turn an enemy’s population into Undead weapons that would turn on each other and do their work for them. That was where Umbrella’s greatest profit—and therefore its greatest power—truly lay. And why stop with just one nation’s military, when they all would pay whatever it took to make sure they possessed the same bio-weapons as their enemies?
Marcus looked at Isaacs for several moments, eyes narrowed, as if he were assessing Isaacs’ sincerity. He then folded his hands on top of his desk and looked down at them, a faint smile on his lips.
“Do you remember why we chose the name Umbrella?” he asked.
“Of course. What does that have to do with anything?”
“We chose it because an umbrella is a symbol of protection—protection of the person who carries it. The image was meant to always remind us of the people we try to help.”
Isaacs had come to see an umbrella as a symbol for how the corporation would one day cover the entire world. He wisely kept this perspective to himself, though.
“You used to be a man of vision, James. Someone who wasn’t afraid to take risks. But you’ve grown timid and short-sighted.”
“And you’ve became cold and calculating,” Marcus countered. “But like you, I own fifty percent of Umbrella. The corporation can’t make a major deal without my approval, and I’ll never agree to work with the military. Any military.”
Isaacs gritted his teeth. The man was insufferable, but he was correct about one thing. They were equal partners, and neither could act—at least not openly—without the other’s cooperation. They’d arranged it that way back at the start, when they’d both still been naïve idealists. Isaacs had matured since then, come to embrace a larger vision. For a moment, he felt a pang of sadness that his old friend still clung to his narrow-minded and simplistic notions of morality. But he had to face facts. James Marcus—his longtime friend, scientific collaborator, and business partner—had become a liability. Not only to Isaacs but to the Umbrella Corporation itself. And it was up to Isaacs to do what was necessary for Umbrella to move forward.
Marcus spoke again. “I cannot be a party to your mad scheme, Alexander, and it is mad, no matter how you try to justify it. In the end, all you’ll succeed in doing is creating a world filled with monsters.”
Isaacs smiled. “Perhaps. But what a worl
d it shall be.”
He nodded toward one of the study’s dark corners, one that was behind Marcus and out of the man’s line of sight. A shape detached itself from the shadows and stepped forward into the light. Albert Wesker moved with a reptilian grace that Isaacs both admired and found disturbing on a visceral level. It was as if the man wasn’t quite human. But then, it was his cold-blooded nature that made him so very effective at his job. As always, Wesker was garbed in black—black suit jacket over a black sweater, black pants, black shoes, and black leather gloves. Wesker’s blond hair was swept back, every strand precisely in place, a sign of a man who valued control over even the smallest of details.
Wesker gripped a clear plastic bag in his gloved hands, and he stepped forward silent as a ghost until he stood directly behind Marcus. Then, before the professor was aware of his presence, Wesker slipped the plastic bag over the man’s head and pulled it tight. Wesker’s expression didn’t alter as he performed this maneuver. His features remained composed, almost peaceful, as if he were out for a stroll in the sunshine instead of murdering someone.
Marcus’s expression wasn’t so placid. His eyes widened with shock, and he opened his mouth, instinctively trying to draw in a breath. But all he managed to do was seal a portion of the plastic to his lips and tongue. He lunged out of his chair in an attempt to escape, but Wesker tightened his grip on the bag, preventing Marcus from doing more than getting to his feet. Marcus reached up and began clawing at the bag, attempting to pull it off, but he was unable to get any purchase on the plastic. He tried biting through it in a desperate attempt to create even a tiny air hole, but Wesker was nothing if not thorough, and he’d selected a bag made from a brand of plastic that was highly puncture-resistant.
Marcus continued clawing and biting at the plastic bag for a moment longer, but he was an intelligent man and soon realized there was nothing he could do. He stopped fighting then and allowed his arms to fall to his sides. The pink flesh of his lips began to edge toward blue, and he fixed his gaze on Isaacs. Isaacs expected to see anger in his soon-to-be-ex-partner’s eyes, along with the fear that came from knowing death was only moments away. Those emotions were there, but mixed in with them was a deep sorrow, and Isaacs could almost hear what Marcus was thinking.