by Silas Cooper
Chase wiped sweat off his forehead as he shook his head to clear it of its fog. He circled his shoulders a few times to alleviate some pain. Then he bent down again to look into his microscope.
“Look at this!” Lucas exclaimed.
The kid’s voice had cracked. Chase found him pointing at his computer. His eyes were wide. The computer cast a sickly glow on his paled skin. Chase stepped to the computer. After a few seconds, he sighed and let his eyes focus in on the numbers.
“The cells are decomposing differently in one mouse,” Chase stated. “But I don’t see a correlation in the differences of his care enough to qualify what caused this difference.”
Chase’s jaw clenched. He scanned all the research again until his eyeballs hurt.
“It’s there. We just have to look harder,” Lucas grumbled.
The voice startled Chase. The two stood so close attempting to read the screen together. Chase had zoned, gotten lost in his thoughts. He’d forgotten another human being stood there.
“It’s the break we need. We just don’t see it yet. So let’s take a break. I need coffee. Maybe a good chat will clear our heads, then we’ll see it,” Chase proposed.
“Coffee. Yes,” Lucas agreed. “My brain is tired though my body is wired for sound.”
“Adrenaline.”
“Right. I remember the feeling. Fighting off Sam gave me an odd sense of déjà vu of being a kid in a violent household. The uncertainty. The feeling outmatched. Sucked. Sucks,” Lucas spat.
The kid’s head still shook from side to side, even though he’d finished speaking. Chase moved to start making the coffee. As the simple task calmed him, he searched his brain for something wise to say to Lucas.
“I think these types of situations, any that are stressful, more so when life-threatening, they make you look back over your life. It’s probably been a decade now that I’ve been divorced. Of course I blame myself, but I still think back to what went wrong sometimes,” Chase admitted.
He inhaled the deep aroma of the strong coffee. He and Lucas both drank what his ex-wife called sludge. Grateful for his cast-iron stomach, his mouth watered for that first drink. His shot nerves didn’t need a caffeine boost, but they were going to get one anyway.
“I think it takes two to end a marriage,” Lucas finally said. “I know both my parents were at fault. Neither were good for each other or me or my brother.”
“I suppose. But in my case, the cards fall heavily to my side. I screwed up. Doesn’t get any simpler than that. If she screwed up, it was because of my mistakes,” Chase grumbled as he poured two cups of coffee.
The still brewing machine hissed as a drop fell to the hot pad before he’d replaced the pot. Not a loud noise, but still it shook him. Didn’t have far to go there. Jayda crossed his mind. Hurt. Seeming small despite the strength his military girl had. His stomach clenched. He hoped she was safe now. He badly wanted to call her, but it’d been so long.
“What happened?” Lucas asked. “You never say; just place blame,” Lucas asked in a timid voice, then sipped his coffee.
“It was my fault. I failed to follow protocol. I let my feelings overshadow my training. I got her hurt. She lost a leg because of me. You never forget seeing someone hurt like that. The guilt haunts you the rest of your life. I let the guilt be my excuse after. I either cared for her too much or I shied away. I couldn’t get it right by her again.”
Chase fell into his seat behind his desk. His coffee sloshed over the cup and fell onto his shirt. It stung, but wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. His nostrils flared as he glared at the cup. With a deep breath, he let the familiar heat of his guilt flood through him. He deserved it.
“Marriage is hard under the best of circumstances, at least that’s what my brother says. I don’t know how he dared it after our parents’ marriage. I’ve avoided relationships like the plague myself. I wish I had something brilliant to say.”
“No need. Ancient history I can’t let go. Let’s move on to current issues. He have to be onto something with this mouse. Our data demonstrates that a cancer stem cell based vaccine can reduce both tumor volume and occurrence in a rat carcinoma syngeneic model. But how are we getting this result when previously we only saw relapses of the cancer?”
“I’m not sure, but my mind is lingering over the order of the injections. It has to be the clue. It’s a slight difference, but a difference nonetheless. The trick is to understand the why and the how. Tricky,” Lucas huffed.
“Hey, do you hear that?” Chase asked sitting up.
“What?” Lucas answered jumping up and taking a defensive position as some of his coffee spilled onto the floor.
“Silence. That’s what. Where’d they go?”
The breaking of glass had Chase on his feet too. Bumping into each other as they flew to the door of the office, they stopped. At the far end of the lab, one of those students—or rather, things—climbed in the broken window. With shaky agility, it stuck the landing and ran toward them.
“Get the mouse,” Chase instructed as he pushed Lucas toward the cages.
Instinct had him grab for a weapon, but he had none on him. His khakis didn’t even contain a damned rubber bullet. No frontline, no time to think, but Chase moved. The thing resembling a fresh corpse stretched his hands toward Chase’s face. In a right hand to right hand move, he grabbed the boy. He bent the arm down and the wrist in. With his other hand, he pinched the nerve just above the elbow.
The animalistic groan of the creature bristled the hairs on Chase’s neck. Tensing, feet placed hip-length apart, he forced the arm around the boy’s back. In a swift move, Chase used the subdued arm to bend him at the waist. His nerve-pinching hand slammed the kid’s head down onto the edge of the lab counter. The sound of the crack of his skull vibrated through Chase.
No time to breath, he caught Lucas watching him. The boy stood frozen, mouse cage in hand.
“Stay!” Chase yelled as another two student creatures stumbled quickly toward him.
First in line, a girl lunged for him. Before he could think, his hands picked her up by the neck and threw her into the counter. With recognition dawning, a boy grabbed at his face. Hands still toward the counter in post-throw, he grabbed a large beaker. The glass shattered over the thing’s head.
The girl got up again, moving the fallen boy with a gash in his head.
“Impossible!” he shouted.
“The surgical instruments in the drawer,” Lucas suggested, setting the cage down.
“Don’t!” Chase yelled.
As he pulled open the drawer, he kicked the girl. She stumbled, knocking down the bleeding boy getting back up. His blood looked too coagulated. Side-stepping the girl, he jumped on the boy. As they fell to the ground, he stabbed him in the head. The two beside him got back up.
The boy under him had stopped dead. With little time to process, he kicked aside the girl again, and bent the other boy back over the counter. He stabbed. The feeling of skin and bone verses metal registered in his bones. The blood on his clothes felt all too familiar.
The girl, a student of his, jumped at him. Grabbing her hair, he pushed her to the blood-soaked counter. His hand froze above her.
“Damn,” he yelled.
With what he had at his immediate disposal—bandaging tape—he bound her arms together. When she dropped to the floor, he did the same with her feet. He watched her fight her binds.
“Shit, Chase,” Lucas yelled. “Look”
Following where the boy looked, he saw more of them moving up the stairs. Soon, more than he could fight at once would be in the hall. He ran to the window and leaped through.
Chapter Five
Chase’s feet flew out from under him. With the hand he’s just sliced on the broken glass of the window, he pushed himself back up. He regained his balance as he broke into a run. It was an awesome feat for even him. He analyzed his distance with their distance to the door. A split second hypothesis told him they’d make it at the same ti
me. He wouldn’t be able to shut the door on that many of them. He had to beat them to it.
Bracing for the impact, he took a leap. His feet landed just through the doorway. He grabbed the door handle to stop his body’s momentum. Damned fire regulations, he thought as the open door slammed into the stairwell wall. His knee hit the chair that some idiot had used to keep the automatic door from closing. At least that flew toward the threat. Didn’t faze them much though. A mere foot from two of them now, he jumped back through the door. Doorknob in hand, he pulled the door toward him. It didn’t slam.
Instead, it caught on an outstretched arm. The sight of the dead skin sickened him. He’d never get used to it, like an animated corpse. Giving the door a hard push in the usual direction of egress, it stopped short. Their moans rang out. From the thuds, he’d hit a few on the head with it. Many had tumbled down the stairs in unison from the impact.
“Like dominoes,” he exhaled the words.
Slamming the door shut, the automatic lock clicking into place was the best thing he’d heard all night. Before he could catch a breath, he turned to the scratch of metal. Lucas had pushed a chair his way.
“Throw it up under the latch just in case,” he urged.
“I don’t think they’re going to bust down a double-walled fire door, but no precaution can be too much at this point,” he wheezed.
Chase checked the door on the other end of the hall before going back to the lab.
“Look at her,” Lucas said when Chase got back into the lab.
“Do I have to?” Chase asked as he bent over to catch his breath.
The rush that propelled him to action tapered off by making him dizzy. He’d been there before.
“You were amazing. And you call yourself old. Did you see the moves you put on those zombies?” Lucas carried on.
“So now they’re zombies?” Chase asked.
He looked up at the boy. Coming to a stand, he glanced at the girl still making in-human sounds and fighting on the floor. She didn’t sweat. She didn’t focus. She just reacted. In that thing, he barely saw the girl he’d once known.
“What else would you call them? Do your tests, but she’s not one of the living. I don’t know how, but it seems the movies were only predictions. Do you think any of the books got it right? Do you think we could finally learn from fiction about real life?”
“Calm down. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Chase huffed. “The initial assessment says you’re right, but my brain hasn’t caught up. It’s waiting for my old body to stop depriving it of oxygen at the moment. I acted on instinct, but with muscles that hadn’t moved that way in years.”
“You need to get out of those bloody clothes,” Lucas yelled over the current round of agitated groans form the thing on the floor.
As Chase changed his clothes and washed off, Lucas rambled on. Chase didn’t seem to need to bother with answering the boy. Lucas worked through his thoughts and theories out loud.
“What do you think this all means?” Lucas finally asked.
“I think it means that I need to call Jayda. Out of my life or not, I care about her.”
Chapter Six
Jayda woke from sleep with a start. Sitting straight up, she listened for the sound that woke her to repeat.
“What is it?” her husband Richard asked.
Blinking, her dark-haired Richard sat up to put an arm around her.
“I heard something,” she whispered.
“It’s just a bad dream,” Richard yawned. “You’ve been tossing and turning all night. I’ve never gotten close to a deep sleep.”
“Quiet,” she grumbled.
Another crash sounded, followed by the breaking of glass. They both jumped out of bed at the same time. Jayda went right for a baseball bat she kept under the bed. At least she no longer slept with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. She’s stopped that for Richard’s sake, but slept better knowing she had some sort of weapon close by. She went for her crutch second. She had no time to put on her prosthetic leg.
Before they met at the edge of the bed, a repetition of objects breaking rang up from the dining room. Jayda maneuvered through the door before Richard. Even with his hand now clamped on her arm, she shrugged him off and moved forward. Her steps, hindered by the crutch, didn’t slow her down. Daily exercises kept up her strength and agility, not to mention her peace of mind.
Down the steps, Richard hovering, she glared at him. He knew better than to treat her differently. Poor guy didn’t get the chance to be a gentleman or she took offense. Yet another crash led them to the living room. Looking cautiously around the wall, Jayda saw a lamp down a person charging through. The lamp falling had turned them back toward the dining room and away from Jayda and Richard.
Obviously the intruder had already been through that room like a bull in a china shop. Debris of dishes littered the ground. Thankful for the carpet, she easily maneuvered unheard with her crutch. Baseball bat up, she inched forward. Richard grabbed the bat from her hand. Before she could glare at him, the intruder turned their way.
In the dim light from the streetlamp shining through the sheers, Jayda thought she recognized the face.
“Lisa?” Jayda asked.
The person lunged at her. Instinct had her push the person away with both hands as her crutch fell away. Shaking out her arms from the impact, she noticed what she thought was her fallen neighbor getting back up. Richard stood beside her, bat up.
“Put the bat down. That’s Lisa, right?” Jayda hissed.
“I think so,” he answered, bat still up.
As Richard handed her the fallen crutch, the woman made a shaky jump to her feet. She lunged at Jayda again. One hand grabbing the wall, she maneuvered her crutch. The rubber on the end hit the woman on the stomach. She barely stopped and lunged again. This time, Jayda pushed with the crutch, sending the woman into a sprawl on the floor.
Richard flipped on the light then.
“It is Lisa, I think,” Jayda exclaimed. “But she doesn’t look right.”
A step forward, just as the woman opened her eyes. Glazed, grayish, and unfocused, Jayda didn’t have time to take it all in before the woman moved to get up again. Before she stood though, she reached a hand out to grab Jayda.
Richard stepped in and plowed the end of the bat into the woman’s chest.
“Richard, you could kill her!” Jayda yelled.
“She already looks dead!” he screamed back.
The man never raised his voice. That’s one reason she loved him. He was as far from a military man as one could get. Her hero in other ways.
Down a second, Jayda realized they were both right. This intruder was Lisa from next door. Also, she looked dead there on the floor. Having served, Jayda knew dead. At least she thought.
“Do you think she’s sick? Maybe it’s that new meningitis virus they’re talking about all over the news?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Her shin has no color except a greyish-blue. I don’t see any visible wounds though.” He looked closer as he leaned over her, bat to his side.
Lisa moved again, just a twitch, and they stood up. Seconds later, the woman jumped up like an exhausted ninja trying moves for the first time. She shook, but stayed. She moved quickly, but not agile. With a feral groan, she lunged at Richard. Jayda caught his bat as he raised it. She swung at the woman’s head. The thud of metal against the woman’s skull sent a tremor down her arms.
“I held back, but she just won’t stay down,” Jayda cried out.
“It’s fine. Let’s drag her to the bathroom and shut her in before she moves again. Looks like drugs to me. They tend to keep moving beyond reasonable force to stop them,” Richard stated.
He grabbed Lisa under her arms and drug her to the bathroom. Jayda watched the sweat break out on his forehead. Their neighbor outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. Richard worked in forensics, so while not a cop, he knew all about the field.
“What the hell?” Jayda grumbled
, wiping sweat off her own forehead. “I’ve never known Lisa to indulge in a drug stronger than coffee and chocolate. She doesn’t even drink. She said something about feeling sick this morning, though. I saw her earlier outside. She said she thought she had a migraine and was going to call off work and climb back into bed.”
“Headache with sensitivity to light is a sign of meningitis,” Richard added.
He guided Jayda to the couch. She chose not to gripe at him for it. Ever gentle, he sat her down. Ever caring, he took her crutch. With his usual concerned half-smile when she did more than he thought she should, he threw a blanket from the back of the couch over her shoulders.
“I thought she looked pretty bad. All pale and stuff. But nothing like now. Plus, she had no energy like they’d talked about on TV. She had enough energy for three people tonight. And we’ve both had beyond our fair share of experiences with dead bodies. She looks like a corpse. Not like the walking dead crap you see on TV, but like a real live body out of the morgue.”
A loud moan followed by a thud came from the bathroom. The noise startled both Jayda and Richard. The sounds became repetitious. A continuous, uneven thumping against the bathroom door continued.
“How is that even possible,” Jayda asked. “I hit her in the head with a bat?”
“I have no idea. Do you think we should call the police?” Jayda asked.
“I am the police,” Richard grumbled.
“Not armed, babe. No offence.”
“I have a bat. I think we need to hit her again and then throw her out of the house. Maybe then call the police.”
“What good will that do?”
“I want her out of the house before she breaks through that door. The thing is fake, two thin sheet of plastic. Hollow in the…”
A crack interrupted him.
“All for your plan, dear,” Jayda agreed as she stood.