by A. Giacomi
I smirk, but try not to laugh at her joke, it wasn’t really time for humour, but she was right. These people must have gold bricks up their ass.
When we grew tired of touring the massive house, Janna and I return to the living room where we find our parents still arguing. Not even now with the possibility of death looming over our heads could they make peace.
“Arthur you need to go find those weapons! You said they were out in the shed…go get them! I don’t care if your boss will be upset because, guess what, he’s most likely dead!” my mother screams.
I wasn’t entirely sure noise was such a good idea right now so I beg her to “Shhh, shhh.”
Thankfully, she shuts her mouth immediately.
My father on the other hand continues, he’s not screaming, but he’s not calm either. “Dina, I could go, but what if those things are out there? Is it really worth it? If something happens to me then who will protect you all?”
I try not to roll my eyes as my father says this; he was more of a coward than I was. He left us after all. I had barely heard from him after he and my mom separated. He was good at running and hiding, but he couldn’t do that anymore, could he? We were sort of stuck together now, for better or for worse.
“I’ll go,” I say to my father. “Tell me where the shed is and I’ll grab the weapons. We’re going to need them if we’re attacked by other people or zombies, the threat level is high.”
My father doesn’t try to stop me, which only proves his cowardice further.
My mother stares at my father in disbelief. “You’re really going to let our daughter go out there and risk her life? You really are a piece of shit, Arthur, I swear!”
My father raises his fists in the air. It almost looks as though my father wanted to hit her, but he refrains. He simply squeezes his fists until they turn red and then he walks toward the front door and leaves. I don’t go after him; I assume he had something to prove to my mother and to us.
When he finally returns, he is sweaty, muddy, and wide-eyed. His arms are full of weaponry that he places at our feet. Three shotguns, some shells, a bow, a few knives, and a pitchfork? I suppose that would work as a weapon.
My dad’s boss sure had a lot of hunting items, this place seemed to be the holy grail of protection, wouldn’t be long before someone else discovered it, and that was what I feared most. Not the zombies, but other people. You couldn’t trust people who made decisions based on fear; they were never the right decisions.
I notice my dad still seems a bit off, pleased with himself, but off. “Dad are you alright? You seem a bit…”
He cuts me off. “Alex honey I’m fine, I heard things in the woods and started sprinting, fell in some mud like a clumsy fool, and I think I’m a bit hungry.”
We all make our way over to the kitchen, bacon and eggs were on the menu. I am grateful for some satisfying comfort food and I am determined to enjoy every last bite. I had never eaten so slowly in my entire life, but I just wanted to savor it, it could be the last time I ever eat this. Once the eggs were gone who knew if we’d be able to get more?
After our meal, we head over to the massive television and try to find some news. Most stations don’t work at all. We pass a station playing cartoons; one was a movie preview channel, and finally one news station! The anchors are not their typical smiley selves, instead, they look seriously into the camera and in between each piece of news, and there is an eerie silence. Perhaps they were the only ones left in the studio? As we listen to them, I realize that the situation is grimmer than I had previously thought.
The female anchor says, “We have been notified that the government will be ordering quarantine in areas where individuals are most infected. This means that even the healthy will be grouped in with these monsters in an attempt to stop the spread of infection. God help those trapped inside the quarantine areas, our thoughts are with you.” She sobs, looking away from the camera as the male anchor takes over patting her on the back.
“Thanks, Tanya. Ladies and gentlemen if you are still watching out there…please stay in your homes. We will try and bring you news as long as we can keep running. We are currently trapped inside our building and have been told that we are surrounded by the infected. Tanya and I have decided to continue talking rather than waiting for what comes next, in the hopes that we can still be of some service to you all in our final hours. We wish you all much luck.”
I bow my head as I think about their situation. They had no way out and were simply waiting for the inevitable. I hope they had the chance to say goodbye to their families. When we grow tired of watching the silent reporters, we decide to head to bed. I decide to take a gun with me; I would feel safer sleeping with a weapon in our room.
My father seemed awfully quiet all evening, especially being the loud mouth we had grown up knowing. I guess the apocalypse changes people, it was a lot to take in. When he goes off to bed he kisses all our foreheads and walks off without any words being uttered. Odd…
Janna falls asleep first, she even begins to snore. I am so jealous of her ability to sleep through anything that I nearly kick her just so she’d wake up and keep my company.
My thoughts run wild, making it impossible to slumber. Every time I close my eyes I keep seeing Eve tied to a surgical table and doctors taking her apart piece by piece. The images cause my eyes to fly open and I am sweating from fear. The vivid nightmare leaves me feeling a bit nauseated. I decide that a cold splash of water to the face might cure me. On my way over to the massive bathroom, I hear a scream. My bare feet slap along the ground toward the cries for help. It is unmistakably my mother’s voice.
When the screams go quite I begin to panic. I wish I had been smart enough to take my gun with me, but there was no time now if I didn’t intervene now it might already be too late. I slowly push the door of her bedroom open and what I find are my mother’s eyes staring back at me from her bed. They were frozen in time, in death’s stare. Blood stains her cheek and her mouth hangs open from her violent screaming. This would be my last image of her. I push the door open all the way to find my mother’s back exposed and open. Her spine cracked, muscle exposed, blood spattered, pieces just everywhere. It was as though she had eaten a grenade and it had exploded out her backside. I cover my mouth trying not to scream or cry, whatever did this was just here a moment ago, I try not to cry, my tears would only blur my vision and I needed to see everything clearly right now.
I don’t see anyone in the bedroom, but I hear panting coming from the ensuite bathroom in the rather large guestroom. I tip toe over to the already open door and peer in. The moonlight flooding through the bathroom window reveals my father leaning over the sink panting like he’s out of breath. The room is fairly dark, but I fear turning on the lights would grab the attention of my mother’s murderer, so instead I call to my father in a whisper.
“Dad, come out, the coast is clear, we need to grab weapons and be ready if this thing comes back. It could still be in the house.” I try to sound logical, but I shiver as silent cries fill my mouth. I sounded more like a frightened child.
When my father doesn’t acknowledge my voice, I begin to worry that he might have been injured far worse that I thought. My gut tells me to approach him and so I do. I place my hand on his shoulder and ask, “Dad? You alright?” This proves to be a rather stupid mistake. As I pull my drenched hand away from his shoulder I find that it’s stained red, more like dripping red. My father was covered in blood that didn’t seem to be his.
At this moment I knew why he had been acting strange all night. He hadn’t been alone in the woods, he hadn’t been clumsy. Something had bitten him; perhaps he hadn’t even seen what it was. Eve never saw what bit her in Egypt. Those things could be quick, and they were clever. Zombies weren’t supposed to be clever, but I suppose this wasn’t the movies, this was really happening.
As my father turns, I back away slowly. H
e growls in a zombie-like tone and reveals his red eyes and veiny blue skin. Chunks of my mother hung from his blood-smeared mouth. I want to scream, but too much fear chokes me, strangles me with a desire to fix the unfixable. It was too late to save her. Her head was the only piece still truly intact. I have to force myself to look away and try to shut down the desire to run to her. “She’s dead! She’s dead,” I repeat in my head, trying to convince myself to snap out of the shock I was experiencing.
One thing and one thing alone got me moving, Janna! I had to get to my sister before our father did. If I died, she would surely be next, an easy sleeping target. I stare into my father’s eyes, they look at me, but it was as though they weren’t truly seeing me. Perhaps zombies had x-ray vision and they could look within, past facial features, past the dermis, and straight to the meat. I looked like a walking piece of bacon and getting away from a rabid dog will prove difficult. I take a step back as he growls and moves two steps closer. I would have to make a run for it if I moved he moved. I would simply have to be faster somehow!
I bite my lip and make the turn. “Don’t look back,” I tell myself and begin screaming down the hall to our room, “Janna run! Run!” Everything moves slowly, I suppose fear does this. I see Janna peek her head out the bedroom door. I’m motioning for her to shut it and hide, but instead, she appears with a gun in hand and points it at me. I tell her, “Take the shot!” and as I dive to the floor I hear the “bang” that fills the house.
She had done it! I gasp with relief. That is until a rather large body falls on top of me with a squish instead of a thud. The bits of my mother now created a goopy sandwich between me and my father. I try to wriggle away only to find that Janna had not hit the brain. My arms divide us slightly, but I’m not strong enough to hold him back. My father desperately tries to chomp at my exposed shoulder and makes contact. Luckily for me, Janna had managed to shoot off his mouth. Bloody slobber stains my arm as I rotate in order to push him away. When I am able to roll out from under him I race over to Janna and take the gun. This needed to be finished. My father crawls along the ground, his eyes pleading for flesh as he holds up his arm to us. Part of me felt as though he were begging for the bullet.
I delivered it.
His head flops to the ground, creating an immediate puddle of zombie juice. I hold Janna who is now crying. I would not allow her to see our mother. This was gruesome enough for one lifetime.
PART 2: TESTING ONE’S PATIENTS
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVE
Strange sounds surround me. A clinking noise can be heard to my right and some buzzing sounds directly above me. I open my eyes very slowly. For the first time in a long time, I feel fairly human. My entire body aches as though it had been hit by a truck. Something about this feeling is desirable; it takes me away from the numbness that the Azrael Virus provided. There were brief moments here and there from the start of my infection where I would feel pain, it gave me hope that perhaps I wasn’t dead yet, that maybe this had all been a dream. The pain had become my drug, I wanted to feel it, to relish in it. I wanted to feel alive again. The only problem was, I wasn’t. Living was a fantasy and I only indulged it for a moment. It was time to get a sense of my new surroundings. Where am I?
The room is white and many small lights hover above me like many eyeballs watching my every move. It was a little blinding and disorienting, but I could only assume this was something they wanted, whoever “they” were.
After a few moments of squinting and trying to make out any of my surroundings, a door slides open and an unfamiliar voice emerges. I try to force my eyes to view him clearly, but he simply appears as a dark shadow. His voice is smooth yet unnerving, something about him screamed wickedness.
“Hello Eve, I will be your new Doctor. Dr. August is…preoccupied, and I have gladly offered to take over genetic testing and research. I’m sure you felt Dr. August was rather unqualified anyway. Have no fear I have more experience with DNA testing. I’m a geneticist after all and I’m quite excited to get started, you see a specimen such as yourself is quite difficult to find. We’re going to have a lot of fun together you and me.”
I was afraid to ask what sort of “fun” he had planned for me. If I had still had a heartbeat I’m sure it would have been sprinting. Clearly, I was back at the underground CSIS lab, and there would be no escape plan in place this time. I had no allies and no answers. For all, I knew they would keep me tied up or locked away for the remainder of my days.
I try to remember where I was before this place. My mind begins to flood with images, memories, first my father, then Cam, then Alex. “Oh god my father!” I say in a whisper, and then all at once I demand the answer, “Where is my father?”
The new Doctor simply says, “Dead.” There were no words before or after, no attempts to explain. Just a word and I suppose it was all I needed to know.
I had failed him, I had failed everyone I loved. If only we had left town sooner. I try not to let the tears pour from my face. Instead, I ask another question. “Where is Cam?”
He hesitates, but then responds, “Dead,” in a similar manner.
Now the tears find me, there is no use holding them back, I had no one left to be brave for. I didn’t dare ask about Alex, there was enough bad news in one word to crush me completely.
“How can you say it so coolly? What kind of monster are you?” I ask through clenched teeth as my anger builds.
As my eyes begin to adjust to the bright room I begin to see the Doctor more clearly. His eyes are ice blue and his hair as black as coal. He pushes his glasses back into place and replies, “I’m not a monster, simply an admirer of facts. I will supply you with what I know, I don’t know the details of their deaths, therefore I can’t supply you with more, but I thought you might want to know they were deceased. It’s much easier for our testing purposes if all your questions are answered. I don’t want to be dilly dallying every single day trying to avoid your tedious questions, so it’s just best to get these sorts of things out of the way. I’m sure you agree.”
If I hadn’t been strapped to a medical table, my new Doctor might not have had a throat left to inform me with. I want to snap his arrogant neck, and I vow to myself to one day complete that task. One day he will cease to breathe.
He comes closer to me and strokes my cheek. His eyes study me while his fingers feign comfort. He continues to stroke my cheek as he voices his assessment of me. “You feel isolated, good. You feel alone, good. You feel scared, good. That’s to be expected.”
He gives a slight grin, and with that he leaves the room, abandoning me to mourn alone. I begin to worry that I might indeed die alone down here. That this would be my final end.
***
Over the next few days, I am forgotten. The metal slab against my back begins to feel like a part of me. I feel my body starving, the pain in my stomach and episodes of thrashing tell me that I needed to feed, but clearly that wasn’t a priority. Part of me welcomed the second death, let me starve, just end this. I think as I close my eyes trying to silence the Azrael Virus coursing through my veins.
I hadn’t mourned my father or Cam yet, mostly because it still didn’t feel real. I hadn’t seen them die, and I suppose part of me just wanted to believe it was all a lie. Perhaps the doctor, who referred to himself solely as “Doctor”, was trying to measure my emotional response? At this point anything was possible. I didn’t mind the waiting or the sense of abandonment or the starving, what I feared was the testing. I wasn’t sure what they had in store for me, but something told me that it was going to be far from pleasant.
Moments later The Doctor comes in, I glare into his icy blue eyes, but it does not affect him. He is confident in his ability to remain alive; clearly, he has not had enough time to get to know me yet and what I was capable of.
I watch his every move as he goes to each corner of the room to fetch something. I se
e him fiddling with something in one of the corners and then classical music begins to play. Typically classical music was said to be soothing, but in this case, it only made me more uneasy. Was he attempting to cover up some other horrifying sounds that would soon escape the room? Somehow I didn’t believe it to be for my benefit, they would not be offering any spa treatments here.
“What are you doing?” I ask as I struggle against my restraints. The damn hunger made me so weak; I would never be able to free myself. It was hard enough to lift my arm off the metal slab even slightly.
He ignores me until I ask a second time, and his reply comes out a tad exasperated, “Do you mind shutting your trap for a moment while I set up? Honestly, I’m trying to concentrate here and you’re not being very helpful. If you continue smacking your lips…” he smacks his in a mocking way before continuing, “then I will have to cut out your tongue. Don’t make me do that, it would only make the experiments last longer without your ability to explain your experiences.”
I immediately stop talking. The man was shaking and running his fingers through his hair again and again as if it would relieve his anger. The Doctor appeared to be a mad-wolfman in sheep’s clothing. I feared testing him and his patience, he held my fate in his hands.
“My apologies, dear Eve, I get flustered easily. Just a moment and we’ll be all set up for our very first experiment.”
He seemed genuinely apologetic, but his ability to go through two drastically different emotions in the span of a minute was quite worrisome. That and his giddiness to get started.
I decide to retrieve my bravery for a moment, maybe if I got to know him a bit better he would see me as less of a test subject. “How may I address you? Do you have a name? Might be a good idea to get to know each other if we’re going to be working so closely together.” I feign a smile.