by James Somers
His hands find one of the faces, pulling it to him. The face struggles to be free, but this only excites his desire. Many hands try to pry him loose, but the hunger makes him strong. They cannot stop him. He will feed and then have them as well.
His own screams are stifled by the feeding. Instead, the screams of another resound in his ears. This is good. This excites the hunger afresh.
Hu springs away, landing atop a piece of furniture. It holds no purpose in his mind except as a vantage point to find his next feeding. One is not enough. He must taste them all. His jaws ache for the biting and the tasting.
They dash this way and that. Hu lashes out and takes another attempting to flee. He comes upon her instantly, biting, tasting. The hunger is sated for a moment, but only a moment. He must have more. He must continue. If he stops, the burning returns for vengeance. It must be fed.
His prey attack him. Do they want to bite him, to taste him? That is his place, his privilege. Come to me. I will have you.
Hu launches at one and then another. Some cry, some scream. Others try to defend, and still others make attempts to attack and save their fellows.
He is like wind and shadow among them. They cannot hope to escape. Hu is invincible now, the hunger feeding him, as he feeds the burning. They are not foes. They are not enemies. They are his to possess.
Like wheat, they fall before his powerful arms and hands. His legs send him through the air. His feet pound the ground swift as a cheetah after her prey. He must feed the burning, as she seeks to feed her young.
Time has no meaning, though the light coming into the space is dimmer now than when he woke to his new purpose. He has fed. He has tasted and consumed. The burning is held at bay for now, but the desire to taste still swirls in his thoughts. It feels good.
They are his. He has fed upon some, and they no longer move. Others, he has freed from their imprisonment. They were for feeding. They were for tasting. Now, they are like him. They will burn and hunger and taste and feed. Hu is not alone. Their screams will bring them into purpose with him.
He cannot remain here. He moves from place to place and finds none left here that are not like him. Others are no more at all. They have ceased to exist. With life gone, there is no more desire for them.
Hu spies more prey beyond the confines of this space. They move slowly to him. Cattle grazing that must be culled. He must have them as well.
Hu launches through a precinct window, landing in the street. His face and torso are covered in crimson, as though he were bathing in blood. The shattered glass and sight of the man combine to fuel panic and terror in the immediate vicinity.
Pedestrians part before him, scattering in every direction. Others, further away, hold up cell phones and begin recording video. Hu jumps to the roof of a car and screams.
The cry sounds predatory and shocking. Cars stop to view the sight. Pedestrians, who were running, stop some distance away to see what is happening. For the briefest moment, there is stillness.
Then Hu leaps away, catching hold of a young man with his cell phone trained upon the gruesome image. Hu takes him down to the ground, tearing at the man, biting and tasting. He pummels him until the struggling stops. Then he moves on.
One after the other, Hu finds new prey and pounces. People run terrified. A maniac prowls the streets. Someone must do something. Sirens sound in the distance, but from the police precinct, where the insane man emerged, there is nothing.
Hu moves like an animal. His appetite for prey is boundless. He is no longer Hu Takashi. He is less, and he is more. He is hunger and pain. He is desire and destruction. He is on the loose and none can contain him.
Those whom Hu touches with his gift of purpose rise in like manner. They burn and thirst and hunger, knowing no satisfaction. Living is only feeding the monster within, sating pain with the pain of others, quenching desire with blood. Each new generation spawned creates another to follow.
Patient Zero
Scott Bishop scans his monitors from inside Laboratory One. “They’re not coming,” he says. “I’m not sure they can hear me where they are.”
“What do you mean they aren’t coming?” another virologist named Keigel asks. “I thought you got Holly Tavers to respond.”
“I did,” Scott says with annoyance. “It’s that guy, that same guy. He intercepted them.”
“The agent?”
“He killed the eighth hospital victim when she took off after them,” Scott says, his eyes remaining on four computer monitors he’s working between. His hands move methodically between mouse and ergonomic keyboard. He doesn’t even look down to orient his movements.
Bloody prints and smears remain on the clear Plexiglas windows that surround Laboratory One. The woman did her best to get inside. Being able to see them moving inside in their biological suits with air hoses trailing into their ceiling mounts triggered her need to get at them. Yet, the barrier is too strong. Despite smashing her head repeatedly into the clear panes, she did little more than break the bones of her face in the process.
A moment ago, something caught her attention. She retreated from the place where the virologists watched her, showing up on one of Scott’s monitors. He tried to warn Holly Tavers, Dr. Albert’s assistant and a virologist herself, but they don’t seem to hear.
However, a man dressed as an agent killed the woman before she could kill Holly’s group. None of them in the lab recognized the agent.
“What’s he doing now?” the third virologist, Asher, asks, looking over Scott’s shoulder. “Did he kill them, too?”
“No,” Scott says. “He’s leading them away, probably back to the control room.”
“What about our cameras there?” Keigel asks.
“He shot the cameras in that area, remember?” Scott says.
“What kind of a hacker are you?” Asher asks. “You can’t do this, can’t do that. You can do something, right?”
Scott Bishop fumes silently, clearing one screen of camera feeds as he goes to work.
“What are you doing now?” Keigel asks.
“Something,” Scott replies angrily, shooting a glare at Asher. “I’m hacking the system and bypassing the security lockdown on communications. We may not be able to do a lot with our own facility, but I can reach out to someone who can.”
Angela Sayers pores over data coming onto the large flat screen monitors in the War Room. This particular room belongs to MI6 as a division of the Government Communications Headquarters, also known famously as the Doughnut. The huge facility resembles a flying saucer in shape and construction, replacing fifty other buildings that previously occupied its location in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.
She watches, with a stony face, the various civilian and military response units deployed in the city, as they attempt to combat this new threat to the UK. Somehow, and no one yet knows, a viral epidemic was unleashed. What they do know—they being a select few including herself—is very limited.
Two boys were admitted to St. Mary’s hospital fifteen days ago after an altercation near their school—Tom Kennedy and Jonathan Parks. The Kennedy boy sustained the lesser injuries by far. The Parks boy sustained a broken arm and multiple contusions. X-rays of the Parks boy provided physicians with proof that the boy’s arm somehow healed itself before the break could be set in surgery. A contact on staff at St. Mary’s notified Dr. Albert of the Tombs Laboratory housed in the nether regions of Vauxhall Cross.
The next day, the Parks boy was detained by MI6 operatives and taken to the Tombs for further inquiry to potentially be added to Dr. Albert’s program there. The same day, the Kennedy boy became symptomatic for what virologists at the Tombs have since identified as a new strain of viral pathogen.
Tom Kennedy attacked at least eight members of the hospital staff, killing one. The boy and his victims were taken into custody by a special team, sent from MI6, and detained in the Tombs’ Biohazard Containment Facility. It was thought that all victims of the attack had been found and
taken into custody.
However, almost 24 hours later, new attacks occurred in the Tube system on a train bound for Westbourne Park. Over twenty people became infected and were killed by Armed Response Officers in the terminal. New victims of this attack were not known to be infected and were subsequently transported to local hospitals and a nearby police precinct—a costly blunder. Another attack then occurred, taking many officers and civilians in the precinct. Still more attacks occurred when infected officers from the Tube station incident turned while receiving medical attention. It spiraled out of control from that first missed hospital infection.
The one odd fact in this whole unbelievable scenario, however, is that Dr. Albert identified the boy, Jonathan Parks, as Patient Zero. After performing tests, when the news came about Tom Kennedy attacking the hospital staff, Parks was determined by Albert to be the source.
The boy is a carrier, but is not symptomatic. Dr. Albert believes Jonathan unwittingly transferred the virus to Tom Kennedy during their altercation. And, more importantly, Dr. Albert believes a vaccination based upon special antibodies produced in Jonathan’s blood can provide a cure.
However, there is a newer development. The Tombs is experiencing an unidentified containment breach. Communication with their control officer remains unsuccessful. Normally, these situations are related to a viral pathogen loosed from one of the labs into the rest of the facility.
An outbreak requires a thermal cleansing to the entire lab and everyone infected inside. Pathogens kept in the Tombs, and labs like it, are too dangerous to be allowed the opportunity to infect mankind. A pandemic would wipe out humanity.
However, the situation in the Tombs remains unclear. Communication is lost, and SIS doesn’t know what they’re dealing with yet. To send a team inside, without knowing what they are up against, might prove disastrous. Especially, since the Tombs lab holds the eight living victims of the hospital attack at St. Mary’s.
Angela peruses recent footage from the Tombs, particularly files relating to the boy. Jonathan is fifteen years old and was in the custody of Mr. and Mrs. Harold and Jeanette Lemon, foster parents who cared for him, since the death of his grandfather, but never adopted him. The Lemons have no prior record and seem to be of little consequence.
Still, they are being held in a secure location. Their blood was tested. The results indicate they are clean of any infection.
Lucky for them, Angela thinks. She sees images of the creatures, making her shudder. She didn’t attain to this position in Government Intelligence by a weak constitution. She’s handled tough situations before, field assignments where only her and one other agent returned alive. Her employers value her expertise and consider her an essential asset.
The team working under her authority calls her Medusa—a glare that could turn the most hardened agent to stone. She heard the name used once when people thought she wasn’t listening. Angela Sayers smiled to herself but never corrected them for it. This situation is different—mankind’s survival is threatened.
One of her techs calls for her attention.
“Monitor four, ma’am,” Richards says with a hand pointing, even though she knows already exactly where the monitor hangs upon the wall.
When GCHQ decided to modernize with a brand new facility, she was the one to design the layout for this division. The War Room is her baby. From here, she spies on groups and individuals who have no idea anyone is even watching. From here, she coordinates the movement of teams all over the world.
A youthful face, adorned with spectacles, appears on the monitor, looking toward the desktop camera on his end. The man wears a biological safety suit tethered to a ceiling mount that supplies him with oxygen. Angela never met the man, but her photographic memory recalls recent employee files she’s sifted from the Tombs.
“This is Director Sayers, Mr. Bishop,” Angela says through her collar microphone. “What do you have for us? We lost communication with your facility after the containment breach alarm. What’s happened?”
“Director, it’s the hospital victims,” Bishop says.
“They’re loose, I presume,” Angela says, sighing.
If she wasn’t facing Armageddon in the streets of London right now, she would be shocked. Yet, the matter in the Tombs is hardly a surprise after the past two weeks in the city. The real problem is the boy. Is he safe? Has Dr. Albert produced a vaccine?”
Bishop nods. “They’re loose, all right, but they didn’t escape. They were set free.”
Angela’s eyes shoot up to the monitor at once. “Set free by whom?”
“Unclear,” Bishop says. “I’m trapped in one of the labs with two other virologists. I’ve been able to hack the network to get word to you. We’re watching a person on our security cameras. He’s dressed as an agent. I think he set the eight victims free and let them tear through our facility. He killed some himself.”
Someone dressed as an agent.
Angela becomes alarmed at this news. Why would an enemy infiltrate the Tombs now, unless—
“What about the boy?” Angela asks sharply.
“Dr. Albert’s Patient Zero is now with the enemy agent,” Bishop confirms. “Whomever he is, he made sure to intercept Dr. Albert’s assistant, Patient Zero and the two kids living in Sector Four. They are together. He got to them and diverted them from coming to help us in the lab.”
Angela worked for years with MI6 as a field agent. She knows reasons why another agent would be sent for Patient Zero. For over a week, the world watched London descending into chaos. Other nations must realize this viral plague will eventually come their way.
If they know about the boy, then it is because a mole within the organization fed information to those foreign governments. They will seek him for a potential cure.
“I want an image of this agent,” Angela says.
Bishop rolls through a video file on his end, freezes a frame, and sends the image through to Sayers. Half a second later, the image of a tall man with dark hair wearing a dark suit appears on the War Room monitor for Angela’s scrutiny. The picture is a little fuzzy, but Angela knows this man. She has no doubts about his identity.
In a way, she expects to see him. After all, the Russians and the Americans are the most likely foreign governments to know of Patient Zero. The Russians, however, are most likely to move quickly to take him. In this situation, only their best will do.
“Vladimir Nesky,” she says coolly.
“Ma’am?” Bishop asks.
“He’s a Russian agent,” Angela says, so that everyone in the War Room can hear her. The gravity of their situation is made apparent just by that statement. “And he’s stealing Patient Zero.”
The War Room staff grows still and quiet, waiting for their director to formulate her plan of action.
“We need a team that can intercept Nesky,” she says. “And we’ll need another team when that one fails. Do we have agents in the area?”
The problem is two-fold. Armed Response teams and military units are busy with the outbreak spreading in Central London. The streets are chaotic. They’ve already begun shooting the infected in a late attempt at halting the spread of this virus.
Then there is MI6. Its field agents don’t just hang around a water cooler at the SIS Building waiting for someone to say go solve this problem. The agents often work abroad undercover. There are some in England, even some in London, but not necessarily of the caliber necessary to take down Nesky.
“Agent Divine has a team currently working London,” Richards says down the row. He moves his mouse and looks up. “He was also the agent responsible for taking Patient Zero into custody at St. Mary’s in addition to the other eight infected by the attack.”
“So, he’s worked the Tombs, and he knows the boy by sight,” Angela says. “And he’s close. Put me in contact immediately.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Richards says, dialing the agent’s cell through his computer.
In seconds, Agent Divine’s face appears on
another flat screen, utilizing a two-way link between the War Room and his cell phone camera.
“Agent Divine, Director Sayers at GCHQ,” Angela says. “We have a situation, priority one.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he responds.
“The Tombs Laboratory is compromised. Our eight infected civilians have been set loose in the facility in an apparent attempt by Russian agents to apprehend Patient Zero. You are familiar with the boy, Jonathan Parks?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, his voice concerned now.
“Employees have been attacked in the lab,” Angela continues. “Some are dead, others are likely infected and may currently represent a significant threat. The Russian agent has been identified as Vladimir Nesky.”
Divine pauses Divine before responding. “I understand, ma’am.”
“He has the boy with him, but has not left the facility as yet. Also in his company are the virologist Holly Tavers, and two youths from the special research division known as Sector Four. Evidently, Nesky intercepted Jonathan with this group and has not eliminated them yet. If possible, we would like to keep that from happening. However, Patient Zero is our priority. Collateral damage may be unavoidable.”
“My team is en route, ma’am,” Divine says. “ETA three minutes.”
In the background, Angela sees Agent Divine riding inside a vehicle. She hears the engine accelerate as Agent Divine signs off. She only hopes Divine and his three man team can stop Nesky before he gets the boy out of the Tombs Laboratory. Once that happens, tracking them becomes extremely difficult, especially with the current situation in Central London.
“I still need that second team,” Angela says to her group.
“Director Sayers?” Scott Bishop chimes in from monitor four. “What about us? We’re trapped in here, and the employees who were attacked appear to be symptomatic for the virus. Each generation is changing faster.”
Angela gazes back at the monitor. “You and your men hold tight in there,” she says. “For now, you’re safe behind those walls. We’ll have people in there, as soon as possible to get you out.”