Ultimate Undead Collection: The Zombie Apocalypse Best Sellers Boxed Set (10 Books)

by Joe McKinney

  The heavy door swings open then shuts behind me, blocking out the last of the traffic and city noise. In its place is the familiar quiet of this old building; the creaks and groans, the low machine hum coming from the top floor.

  It would be quicker to walk but I’m tired and I call the lift. I wait for it to work its way down to ground level, then get inside and slide the metal lattice door across. It judders into life again and I lean back, thinking of bed. It’s been a long day. Hopefully tomorrow will be quieter.

  I step out onto the landing, then stop. It’s dark. Darker than it should be. The corridor is quiet. I enter my PIN, scan my eye and let myself in, then stand in the small lobby area. There are fewer lights on in the lab than usual. Is something wrong with Joe? That seems a far more likely explanation than Gill having switched everything off to get an early night. I can hear the TV.

  ‘Gill? Joe? Where are you?’

  I head straight for the cramped living area we’ve claimed as a home, flicking on more lights as I go. The TV’s on, but neither Gill or Joe are there. I go further into the lab, and as I approach the main area, it immediately becomes clear what’s happened. One of the inner labs has sealed itself off. Shit. Gill must have tripped it. It’s always been over-sensitive. Damn, I bet that’s exactly what’s happened: the containment protocol has triggered and they’re both stuck inside. I go to the small window and look in but I can’t see either of them. I rap my knuckles on the glass but it’s too thick and they can’t hear me. Stay calm. I can deal with this.

  I sit down at the control desk, trying to remember the log-on details Gill gave me for when I helped her document her work. I shake the mouse and tap the space bar and the terminal immediately comes to life. Gill’s still logged in. There are windows open all over the screen. I can’t make sense of most of them.

  Between this computer and the next is the mic I’ve seen Gill and Alfie use to talk to each other when one of them is working in the inner lab. I drag it over, press the button on the base, then cough, not wanting to startle Gill or Joe. Then I speak, and I can hear my muffled voice inside the lab. ‘Gill? Gill, are you in there?’

  No answer. I try again. Still nothing.

  Don’t panic. I can sort this out. We’ve talked about this happening before. She’s shown me where to find the emergency instructions and troubleshooting guides. I tell myself over and over that it’s probably just a system fault… just a malfunction.

  There are CCTV cameras controlled by another computer. I fluff my password twice, then manage to get in on my third attempt. The dark screen flickers into life. The display is split into quarters – different CCTV images of what’s happening inside both of the inner labs. I scan each of the pictures, and in the lowest corner of the bottom right image I see her. Oh, Christ, it’s Gill. She’s sprawled across the floor, and she’s not moving. I get up and run over to the glass again and strain to see more. I can see one of her feet sticking out at an awkward angle to the rest of her body. What the hell happened here? Some kind of accident? I hammer on the glass but I know it won’t do any good.

  My hands are shaking with nerves as I sit back down at the keyboard and try to sort out this mess and get into that lab to help my wife. I find the camera controls and manage to zoom in on her face. The black and white images are pixelated, hard to make out… is that blood? I click the intercom button again. ‘Gill! Answer me, Gill!’

  The static hiss of an empty channel. No reply. Then finally something.

  ‘Daddy?’

  Joe’s voice sounds huge through the loudspeakers. I cycle through the CCTV images again, desperately looking for him. ‘Where are you, sunshine? Come to the window.’

  Then I see him. He’s been hiding in the corner behind a cabinet, and he only becomes visible when he starts to move. He stands up slowly, then runs across the room, giving his mom as wide a berth as possible and knocking over a tray of instruments which fill everywhere with ugly, distorted noise. I look up as he slams against the glass, face ashen white with terror, standing on tiptoes so he can see over the sill. I carry the mic over to the window. Joe’s hammering against it now, tears rolling down his cheeks.

  ‘What happened, Joe?’

  His amplified voice fills the room. ‘All the doors locked on us, Daddy. I couldn’t get out.’

  ‘What about Mommy? What happened to Mom? Did she have an accident? Can you try and get her to talk to me?’

  His whole body judders as he sobs. He gives his mom a sideways glance but he can’t bring himself to look straight at her.

  ‘She’s not moving, Dad. The doors all shut and she couldn’t get them open again. She got angry and started shouting at me to get out of the way. She was on the computer, trying to make something happen, then…’

  ‘What, Joe? What happened?’

  ‘She started coughing. It got really bad, real quick, Dad. I didn’t know what to do. She started bleeding. She threw up blood on the floor, Daddy.’

  My mouth’s dry. Can’t think what to say. She’s dead. I know already that I’ve lost her. I have to get in there. Have to get Joe out. Have to get help.

  ‘Daddy, can you get me out? Please, Daddy…’

  ‘I’m going to go and find out how. Give me a minute.’

  I press my hand against the glass, as close as I can get to his, then go back to the desk. I start scanning the screens and menus, looking for the release to get him out of the inner lab. There’s nothing obvious. No instructions. Jesus, there must be something. I remember Gill used to use a PIN, then a retina scan…

  Wait.

  It hits me like a hammer-blow.

  Why did the lab go into lockdown? Shit, what went wrong in there?

  Joe’s crying over the loudspeaker, and the noise makes it impossible to think straight. He’s still straining to look over the bottom of the window.

  ‘Wait a sec, sunshine,’ I say, trying to keep myself together and not let him pick up on my nerves. ‘I’ll have you out of there in no time.’

  I nudge the sound down to concentrate. Have to try and focus. I go back to the terminal Gill’s logged onto so I can access her notes and recordings, the way I did when I used to transcribe them for her. I compare the files and times on one screen with the camera feeds on another, then reverse the recordings. For a few seconds I’m frozen, watching my wife come back to life as the footage runs backwards in double-time. I spool back to just before she gets ill, then go back a little further still. I can only bear to watch a few seconds before I have to switch it off. I can hear her choking. She grabs her throat. She’s trying to speak, but her noise is drowned out by Joe’s terrified screams.

  ‘Almost there, Joe,’ I tell him, glancing up at his saucer-like eyes, staring at me in abject terror. ‘Won’t be long, okay?’

  Rewind again. Watch again. What was she doing? She was supposed to be disassembling the lab, but she looks like she was still working on stuff.

  I’ve gone back several hours on the cameras now. Gill’s sitting at a workstation in the inner lab. Joe’s lying on the floor next to her, reading a book. Everything looks normal. And then I find her corresponding log entries, and I play the file. Her voice fills the room.

  4:03pm.

  My analysis of the ADP is complete. As usual, the military science division have fucked it up. This is one of the reasons I couldn’t work with them. They’ve tried to run before they could walk, and they’ve overlooked a couple of major flaws. Makes me glad I got rid of Alfie. He should have spotted this.

  I can’t leave this project as it is. I can’t leave the entire world breathing in this military-grade shite day after day. I can’t have it on my conscience.

  I left myself a way out, and it’s time to use it. There’s a way to alter the structure of the ADP at base level. If it still works, it’ll neutralize itself – see itself as a threat, almost. The self-replication traits the military strapped on means that a chain-reaction should then take place. In effect, if I’ve got this right, the ADP will elimin
ate itself and we’ll be back to square one. It’s a safeguard I had in place from the very beginning.

  My god, is that what happened? That would explain it… she did what she thought she had to do to eradicate the program, only for it to react. She used to talk about it as if it was intelligent sometimes. She said it could adapt, that it would target hostile germs.

  Another loud sob from Joe focuses me again. I fast-forward the CCTV, watching Gill move around the lab at double-speed. She dashes around the place, stepping over Joe who lies stationary on the floor under her feet. Then he gets up and he’s sick everywhere. I thought he would have got rid of that bug by now. Gill stops what she’s doing to clean him up, and for a moment all I want to do is watch the two of them together. A mom and her son. Not a scientist. A mother. She sits him on a chair across the room and fetches him a bowl.

  Fast forward.

  They’re laughing again. Both of them look calm and relaxed.

  Fast forward.

  5:25pm.

  Perfect. I took an air sample contaminated with ADP and added my re-engineered variant. The results have been exactly as I’d expected, gradual ADP decay. After fifteen minutes the sample showed hardly any trace of ADP remaining. Kiss this, General Nicholls. Wish I could see the old bastard’s face when they tell him his new ‘peacekeeper’ has disappeared.

  Gill leaves the lab then returns a short while later with a cup of coffee.

  Fast forward.

  Stop.

  A sudden change. Gill’s up again. Checking screens. Moving frantically from terminal to terminal in the lab. I pause the film and check her log-in again, desperately scrolling through the entries to match with the time on the CCTV footage. Got it.

  6:13pm.

  Something’s not right. Something’s very wrong here. The two strains of the ADP appear to both be reacting to something, but I don’t know what. There’s a third element in here. They’re combining… mutating…

  Christ, it’s Joe. It’s his sickness bug.

  The voice recording ends. Back to the CCTV. Gill bundles Joe up in her arms but, before she can get him out of the room, the lab locks itself down. The camera shakes with the force of the doors double-locking themselves. On the screen, Gill drops Joe then clutches at her throat.

  ‘Daddy, get me out,’ Joe says, his amplified voice echoing around me. I can’t take my eyes from the screen. Gill’s on the floor now, thrashing helplessly, unable to breathe.

  Then she stops.

  ‘Daddy,’ Joe screams again, the desperation in his voice clear. His cries force me into action.

  ‘I’ll get you out,’ I tell him, wiping tears from my eyes, then pressing my hand against the glass, covering his. I try the door overrides, but they won’t respond. The status manager says there’s been a breach… that the lab can’t be re-opened until it’s been decontaminated. I don’t know how to reset the system. I’ll have to break in. ‘I’m going to get some tools, Joe. I won’t be long. I’ll get you out, son, I promise.’

  I take the lift down to the basement, the sound of his sobbing still echoing in my ears. I run over to the construction site, desperately looking for anything I can use to smash my way into the lab. There’s a van parked out of the way as if someone was trying to hide it. I break a window and manage to scramble into the back, its triggered alarm deafening me. In it I find a pick and a lump hammer. I take them both and run back to our building.

  The lift cage rattles and judders as it climbs back up. And as it slowly approaches the top floor, all I can do is lean against the wall and think about Joe and Gill. The initial panic starts to fade slightly and I start to consider my options with a fraction more clarity. Should I contact the military? I dismiss that idea almost before I’ve finished thinking it. I can’t take that risk. Who knows what they’ll do. If whatever’s in there killed Gill, then they’ll take Joe and run tests on him, lock him up in another lab and I won’t be able to do anything to help. I can’t let them. I could try Alfie, but I don’t trust him either. No, I have to do this by myself.

  The lift stops and I slide back the door.

  I stop when I’m halfway down the corridor.

  Jesus Christ.

  A sudden realisation makes my legs go weak with nerves. Gill was talking about whatever it is that’s loose in the lab being self-replicating. Can I risk breaching the seal and letting it out?

  #

  ‘Daddy, get me out.’

  Joe starts screaming again the moment he sees me.

  ‘How do you feel, son?’

  ‘Scared. Really scared.’

  ‘Do you still feel sick?’

  ‘A little. Need to pee.’

  ‘Use the sink.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Just do it, Joe.’

  I watch helplessly as he walks across the lab, occasionally checking back over his shoulder to make sure I’m still there. He drags a stool over to the sink, then kneels on it and pees into the sink like I told him. He tries to wash his hands, but the water’s dried to a dribble. Everything’s shut down in there. Joe looks tired. He comes back over to the window, dragging his feet.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Really hot. Tired.’

  ‘Sit by the air vent.’

  He does as I tell him. ‘Nothing coming out.’

  My worst fears are confirmed. The inner labs are hermetically-sealed rooms. Nothing’s getting in or out. There’s no air in there. Total lockdown.

  Joe’s distracted, staring at his mom’s corpse again.

  ‘Don’t look, son.’

  ‘I’m scared, Daddy. Get me out. Please, Daddy, get me out.’

  Whatever it is that killed Gill, it hasn’t affected Joe. Is it over, or is he somehow immune?

  #

  It’s late. I’ve gone through all of Gill’s files and all the manuals and system guides I can find, but I’ve found no answers. I can’t make sense of any of the data, but then again, I don’t need to. All I know is my wife is dead and my son is trapped. If I let Joe out, there’s a chance more people might die, but what else can I do? He’s my responsibility. I’m all he has left.

  I remember Gill’s words from a few nights back. She talked about having to make an impossible decision: having to choose between our son and everyone else. And now I find myself facing the exact same choice, and for the first time I can fully feel the enormous weight of pressure Gill had been struggling with all this time.

  I’m standing at the window again. Joe’s sitting on the floor next to his mom. He’s stopped crying. He looks like he’s struggling to stay awake. With effort he glances up and sees me at the window, his eyes locking onto mine.

  What do I do? I can’t let him die.

  I put on a face-mask from one of the hazmat suits Gill and Alfie sometimes wore, then grab the pick and start swinging it at the wall. The window and doors are strengthened; my best bet is to try and hammer my way straight through the brickwork. In a momentary gap between blows, I hear a voice.

  ‘That you, Daddy?’

  It’s Joe. Just a whisper. Barely alive.

  ‘Stay right back, sunshine,’ I shout, my voice muffled by the mask, not knowing if he can hear me. The plaster crumbles. Wood starts to splinter. Bricks shift. My muscles are already burning with effort but I know I can’t stop until I have him in my arms again. ‘I’m coming to get you, son.’

  #

  ‘Where are we going, Dad?’

  ‘Away from here. I’m going to try and take you to Pop’s house, okay?’

  ‘Okay. We going to keep these masks on all day?’

  ‘For a little while. Just until we’re sure it’s safe.’

  ‘What about when we need to eat.’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  ‘What about Mom?’

  Hard to answer. Hurts too much. ‘When you’re safe with Pop, I’ll come back and look after Mom.’

  ‘What do you mean, look after her?’

  ‘I’ll tell people about the accident.
Tell people what happened.’

  ‘Are you going to get into trouble.’

  ‘No, Joe. It’ll all be fine.’

  I start the car and drive away from the lab. The side roads are clear, but the traffic’s backed-up on main street. We can’t go any further. It’s the middle of the night, for Christ’s sake.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Joe asks.

  ‘A crash, I think. Wait here.’

  I get out of the car and pull my hood over my face so people don’t get freaked out by the mask. Looks like a car’s gone into a hydrant. Jesus, is that someone lying in the middle of the road up ahead? And now I see that most of the other cars in this traffic queue have crashed too, like they’ve just run into each other. What the fuck?

  I walk a little further forward then stop when the guy behind the wheel of the car I’m next to thumps against his window. He’s hammering on the glass. I pull him out and try to help but there’s nothing I can do. He’s choking. He writhes at my feet and spits blood over my boots.

  More people are collapsing now. Everywhere. All dying like Gill. It’s spreading.

  I have to get Joe away from here.

  #

  I manage to turn the car around and find another route out of town.

  ‘What’s happening, Dad?’ Joe asks, strapped into his booster seat behind me.

  ‘Don’t know,’ I lie.

  ‘Those people were getting sick like Mom.’

  ‘That’s why we have to keep our masks on.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we help?’

  ‘We can’t.’

  I put my foot down and drive out of town. And now ours is the only car moving. I look at Joe in the mirror and I picture him still trapped in the lab with Gill, waiting to die.

  I know I did the right thing. I had no choice. It’s just Joe and me now.

  ‘We still going to Pop’s?’

  ‘That’s the plan.’

  ‘Will Pop be okay?’