by Sara Brooke
In the quarantine zone, the work continued.
Chapter 9
Dan still had nightmares about his mother.
Sometimes when he would drink too much and eat a grease-filled meal right before bed, he would dream about his once-beautiful mother. The dreams were always the same…
He could see her greeting guests at a social gathering. The guests would stand around their formal living space, admiring the complex paintings on the wall, the crystal goblets filled with crimson wine, or sometimes, they would swoop down and hold him in their thin, manicured hands…admiring how handsome he was. Such a charming little boy.
His mother would eye the entire event with a cool gaze, her eyes calmly glancing from one end of the room to the other, a hint of a smile painted on her velvet lips. In his dreams, she always looked her best. But he could sense unease within the cool visage. He would look down and see her right ring finger twitching slightly as she casually swayed her hips as if longing to move away.
While in the throes of the dream, Dan would turn his head and revel in the sinister beauty of the moment, reflecting on the cool elegance of the surroundings, and the somewhat distracted, shallow element that surrounded every person like an invisible evil cape.
He would then realize that his mother was gone. She had disappeared, leaving him alone in a false carnival.
Walking quickly out of the room, he would race down the darkened hallway, calling for his mother…
Mommy….Mommy…Mommy…
In the distance, he could hear a silky voice calling to him, “Come here my sweetheart. Come see mommy, Danny. Come see me…”
As he neared the end of the hallway, he would see her floating towards him; her feet hanging far from the floor…her arms outstretched…the silky fabric of her dress pulled out like wings carrying her forward.
With every passing second, his heart would begin to race with the knowledge that something bad was about to happen.
Something really bad.
Then, as she neared, her face would change and resemble a gargoyle and that gentle, velvet voice would screech as she got closer and closer…
“Come to me Danny….Dannnnyyyyy…..”
Dan had dreamt the same nightmare many times throughout his adult life and wasn’t sure why he was remembering it now while rummaging through the laboratory to secure the infusion that might save Rosa’s life.
Shaking his head and trying to erase the horrible thoughts of his darkest dreams, he quickly grabbed the last buffer vials. After checking the hallway, he returned to Greg. His unlikely assistant was staring at Rosa with a horrified look on his face and when Dan drew near, he understood why.
Rosa’s face had completely split.
The gash that had started along her forehead had now lengthened and split her face in two. Grayish matter oozed out and was pooling around the base of her head. Her eyes were closed, but she was muttering an unintelligible language and alternatively moaning quietly.
Dan knew he might be about to lose her and needed to move quickly.
Gently pushing Greg backwards, he pulled out the syringe and filled it with the last of the infusion buffer. Silently, he approached Rosa and quickly plunged the needle into her arm, emptying the last of the vials…
Thankfully, she didn’t budge, just continued to ooze and moan.
Taking a deep breath of relief, Dan staggered back and leaned up against the wall. It was at that moment when he realized how exhausted he was. The nightmare they were living in had positively drained him and the stuffiness of the air inside the building was making it hard to concentrate. All he wanted to do was curl up on the couch downstairs and take a short nap to clear his mind and regenerate internal batteries that were dangerously low.
But he knew that wasn’t an option. Greg was barely hanging on, Rosa was unconscious and turning, and he wasn’t completely sure that his other subjects were dead.
They needed to get out.
But he couldn’t. He had to try to save Rosa. Like Greg, he felt a kinship to the woman who had hung on so long…certainly longer than the others…and who was fighting against the change to maintain her humanity while her cells worked against her.
He hoped that the infusion would work or at least slow the transformation so that they could get out and provide additional care.
Turning to Greg, he decided it was time to take action.
“I’m going back outside. This is crazy. We can’t wait here until 10pm for someone to consider letting us out. We need help now.”
Greg looked at him with a blank expression. He appeared defeated and exhausted, unable to make a decision. Dan reached down and gripped his shoulder. “It’s going to be ok Greg. Just hang in there. We’ll get out of here.”
Leaving Greg in the room, he raced down the hallway, and threw open the glass doors to the pool area. Anger flooded his mind. They can’t keep us in here forever, he thought. This is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve got to get us out of here.
The deck was dark, but automatic lights illuminated the pool. Gentle ripples shimmered along the surface, the table still sitting in the center of the pool partially immersed as a reminder of Rosa’s battle with Jennifer. Dan shuddered despite the heat and stepped back up on the chair that was positioned below the hole in the tarp. Inky blackness seeped through the opening and he felt as if he was speaking into a dark abyss to the devil’s accomplices.
“Hello?” he shouted, “This is Dr. Johns. I need to speak with someone. Please respond.”
This time, he didn’t hear any chattering or gravel crunching. The night was silent with the exception of noises that sounded like something rubbing against the ground and people speaking in low voices.
Dan tried again.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
“HEEELLLLOOO?” he screamed.
Nothing.
No one responded.
Frustrated beyond belief, Dan pulled out the knife he’d been carrying the past several hours as a back-up weapon, and started stabbing away at the hole Rosa had initially created. He tore at the hole with all of his anger and desperation, not caring anymore if someone shot at him. The whole situation had become unbearable and his guilt, coupled with aggravation, was leading him down a crazed, uncaring path.
He’d begun to slash open a considerable hole, when suddenly, the black of night was replaced by a darker black he couldn’t quite place. The infinite darkness was still at first and then suddenly pushed out a powerful wave of air that was so strong, it knocked Dan to the ground. Then, the whoosh of air died down and stopped entirely.
Dan found himself lying on the ground and rose unsteadily. The realization of what had just happened hit him hard, like a ton of steel bricks. Something was now attached to the hole he’d created and had the ability to blow…hard.
It’s a trap, he realized. This whole fucking thing is a trap.
Sinking back down, Dan realized that there was no getting out. He’d been tricked into trying to save the dying subjects, but his captors on the other side of their prison knew he’d fail. And he knew what that meant.
He’d been in a pawn in their game. A game to create the ultimate gene therapy that could kill…turning people into lunatics.
As Dan’s brain raced, he realized that the whole operation had been a hoax. Zyne didn’t care about changing the world of hair care. They wanted to create something that would be far more profitable. The guards who are holding us captive are obviously part of the government, he thought. And they arrived very quickly. They knew we were going to end up like this. What’s going to happen to us? And to people like April, who have been so loyal and committed to the project?
Nausea overtook him then and he turned and vomited into a series of manicured bushes lining the walkways.
***
Greg was terrified.
Rosa had woken up and was now staring stonily at the ceiling. She was silent and had stopped thrashing. Her stillness frightened him, because she no longer acknowled
ged that he was in the room. He wasn’t sure whether or not her brain had been completely overtaken by the cellular transformation.
Standing up, he walked over to the table, remaining a few safe steps away and stared into her face. Her dermis was quickly dissolving and splitting in numerous locations, grayish ooze glistening across nearly every exposed area of skin that hadn’t broken apart.
Her eyes frightened him the most.
They were both ruby red and leaking at the corners. Greg wasn’t sure if Rosa could still see or if she was just in an angry crimson haze. He hoped the sedatives would keep her under control, at least for a few more minutes until Dan returned.
Deep down, Greg had lost all hope. They’d been stuck inside for hours and despite the claim that they might be rescued at 10pm, which was a few short hours away, he had a sinking sensation that it was a stall tactic. Why hadn’t they been rescued already?
The air was getting hotter by the second and at times, he felt a wave of dizziness flush over him and the world would fall out of focus. He had a feeling that they weren’t getting enough oxygen, despite the circulation of the air conditioning throughout the building.
As he stood over Rosa, she slowly turned her head to face him. Her eyes swam back and forth, but it seemed like she might be able to see something, because she was now trying to form a sentence and had started to thrash again.
Suddenly, he heard it.
It sounded like a low moan mixed with an insane laugh. A woman’s laugh.
Turning around, his heart stopped.
Jennifer was standing in the doorway. Or at least, what remained of her.
She was wet, water dripping down her head, clothes stuck to her body. But the only reason he could recognize her was because he knew what she had been wearing before the nightmare began. That was the only indication, because she looked very different now.
Jennifer’s head was unusually swollen and barely balancing on her neck, swaying from left to right like a metronome. Her eyes bulged out and glared at him. Greg noticed that her skin was completely gray and she resembled a walking corpse… a corpse that was horribly disfigured.
She took a few steps towards him and made the same strange sound again.
Whaa….whaa…
Greg pulled the knife out of his pocket and backed up. He doubted that it would be enough to kill the creature that was slowly approaching, but didn’t plan to give up without a fight. As he backed up, he heard something snap and bumped into something wet and squishy.
Rosa had somehow broken free from the rope and was standing right behind him.
Screaming, he tried to get away, but she took him by the arms and threw him against the wall, behind her. Connecting with the wall hurt his head, but he quickly realized that she had been trying to protect him.
Rosa was now standing close to Jennifer and snarled at her, ooze dripping down on to the floor and spreading out in a large pool by her feet. The Jennifer-creature lunged forward and the two fell to the floor snarling and gnashing at each other.
Rosa managed to grab a hold of Jennifer’s swollen head and bashed it into the ground. The two continued struggling, but Rosa took the swollen skull and bashed it into a piece of metal that was holding one of the cabinets in place and was sticking out of the ground. It served as a mini-spear and Greg could hear the wet, mushy sound as the metal went right through the skin and bone…into Jennifer’s brain. She jerked back and forth for a moment and then stilled.
Rosa rose to the ground, swaying back and forth. She stared at Greg, who remained horrified and backed-up against the wall. She seemed uncertain as to what to do and slowly stumbled out of the room and down the hall.
Dan was entering the medical center when he saw Rosa approach. He pulled the gun and was about to fire when Greg shouted at him, “No, stop!”
Dan was confused. How had Rosa gotten free? And why was Greg protecting her? He kept his gun pointed forward.
“Greg, I’m not sure what’s going on here, but we can’t just let her leave. She’s completely turned and could try to kill us both.”
Greg shouted out, “She just saved my life. Jennifer…she came back…and Rosa killed her before she could kill me. Just wait a minute…”
He ran down the hallway after Rosa who had stopped walking. She turned around to face him as he stood just a few inches away.
“Rosa, we want to help you. Please. Don’t move…we…”
Suddenly, Rosa reached out and grabbed Greg’s head. With one quick motion, she twisted it and pulled it off his neck. Blood spurted out everywhere and the headless body jerked and erupted in spasms, falling to the floor in a loud thud.
Rosa stared at the head she now held and began to stuff it into her mouth, chewing loudly. But her chews were interrupted by a loud shot and her face exploded in one big burst of smoke.
She fell to the ground, still holding Greg’s head. When Rosa hit the ground, Greg’s head rolled away from her and landed a short distance away.
***
Dan was still shaking twenty minutes later as he sat alone on the couch in the common area. The scene replayed itself in his head over and over, creating a myriad of horrific images that burned straight through his skull, embedding themselves forever in his aching mind.
As he tried to organize his thoughts, the first thing that hit him was…
I’ve completely failed.
It was true. All of his subjects were dead. The buffer treatment hadn’t worked and his career was basically over. He’d lost many, many people and had absolutely nothing to show for it. The “miracle” hair infusion that was supposed to change the face of aesthetics had absolutely fallen flat on its face.
And the worst part about it was that he wasn’t sure he was supposed to have succeeded. It had been hours since he’d heard from anyone at Zyne and now the only opening or escape he’d found had been sealed off.
And then, a moment of clarity struck him…
Sitting straight up on the couch, Dan realized that if he could find another exit somewhere within the building to make it outside and cut open another hole large enough to escape through, he might be able to get out. He theorized that in the dark, it would be much more difficult to see small openings appearing in the material.
Dan walked over to the registration area, and entered the office. He knew there was a building floor plan posted to the wall for reference and scouring the blueprint, easily found the exit he was looking for.
The loading dock.
One the far west side of the building, the architects had constructed a relatively sophisticated loading dock where trucks could load and unload pallets of food or other necessities. Its shape was awkward in that a large concrete slab jutted out of the entranceway, to provide easy access for different sized trucks and ancillary drayage.
Dan had a feeling that his best chance to escape would be to cut a hole somewhere along the material at ground level as it would be at least partially hidden by the landing that was sticking out. He just needed a very sharp knife and a little luck.
Racing back to the kitchen, he found the sharpest knife available and made his way to the back of the building.
***
When the creature awoke, there was an instant feeling of pain and anger.
It was enclosed in some sort of blanket, which it easily removed and tossed aside. Dried blood flaked off its eyes as they opened and stared into the darkness. Standing up unsteadily, it howled in anger and stumbled into the wall.
A sound caught its attention. It sounded like voices in the distance, but to the creature, it was like nails scraping against a chalkboard.
Furious now, it howled again, and stepped out into the hallway, determined to find the source of its anguish.
Chapter 10
The remaining members of the cleaning crew were tired, bored, and hungry. They’d gone through all of the snacks in the mini-bar, and were feeling restless. Jimmy looked at the two women sitting on the bed together and realized that he shoul
d have gone to help Dan and Greg. Sitting like a lone duck waiting for a rescue that might never arrive was simply cowardly.
It was time to take some action.
Standing up, he looked back at the women with a new sense of confidence, perhaps one borne solely out of exhaustion. “I’m going to go out there and see if I can get some help.”
Both women stared at him as if he was crazy.
“Are you really going out there?” a woman named Claire asked timidly. “Those things are out there. It’s not safe.”
Jimmy sighed impatiently, “Well, we’re not doing any good staying in here. You see the yellow wrapping covering the windows. For all we know, the government’s got us locked in here forever. I don’t know about you ladies, but I don’t want to die in here. It’s starting to get really stuffy and hot too. I think it would be good if we all went out together. That way we can at least watch each other’s backs.”
“But what about Greg?” asked the other woman, named Leslie.
“I don’t know where he is. But what if he’s in trouble and we’re just sitting here? We’ve heard all sorts of weird sounds and gunshots. We’re putting ourselves in more danger by just sitting here.”
The women looked at each other and decided to stay put.
Jimmy sighed and turned around. “Lock the door behind me,” he instructed, “And don’t open it unless you know it’s me.”
They both murmured ok and watched as he walked out.
Standing in the hallway, Jimmy realized how good it was to be out of the room. He’d been going stir-crazy sitting there listening to his female companions weep and worry. Now, being outside by himself, he felt more optimistic.
His optimism dampened however, when he realized that he was stepping out into the open without anything to defend himself with. Looking around, he thought about checking in one of the rooms, but knew there was nothing around other than bedding and toiletries.