“Yeah. Apparently coming into contact with those things and having their bodily fluids get inside of you guarantees you’re done for,” the Male replied as their voices began to fade as they moved further away. I peeked around the corner to see them disappear down another hallway.
I didn’t like what he had to say, speculation or hear-say, the idea of having the fluids of the undead inside my arm petrified me, especially since it had come from my own step-daughter. The last thing I wanted to do was to locate my son, get my daughter and Johnny, get out of here only for me to turn and kill them all on the way. I had to force my mind to think of something different in order to proceed forward, all I could come up with was more stuff that worried or frightened me. I had to rely on what the Young Woman had told me after she’d found me. If I was going to turn, it would have happened already – well over a week now. Whatever this was, I had either beat it, or just slowed it down. I pointed more toward the beating it part more than anything.
“How many hallways are in this damn place?” I uttered under my breath.
I shot across the hallway and stopped at the corner to see the two Guards moving further away from me. Neither of them appeared to be armed, had no utility belt on or any place to conceal a handgun, only a radio attached to their shoulder, which was just as bad as a gun. They may not be able to fight me, but they sure as hell could call for backup and outnumber me. They moved halfway down the hallway and turned right into a room, disappearing from sight.
How much time would I have before they returned?
“This science guy has to be mad or something… I mean really fucked up in the head if he’s doing things to people in the name of science,” I added and crossed the hallway in the direction they had come from. Whatever this psycho was doing, he was doing it somewhere at the end of this hallway and I was abruptly obliged to stop him. If the Guards were as bad as I thought, then this science guy could easily be mistaken as the devil himself.
Hunting him down presented a whole new series of problems that I hadn’t factored into my escape. It meant that I would spend more time in the school than I wanted to, not to mention the fact that it altered me from finding my Daughter and Johnny firstly. I should just locate them and get us all the hell out of here, but by doing that and allowing this psycho to continue with his twisted experiments, if that’s what you wanted to call them, others would fall victim as we had and they might not be fortunate enough to escape.
Weather I liked it or not, I had to find and eliminate Smith. I could destroy their whole structure by doing that, disrupting that chain of command and creating an internal war amongst this group, as they would most likely turn on each other. Let them kill each other off fighting for power and control while we flew off into the approaching dawn. There was no way for them to track us, and even by some odd chance they did, Andrews and his soldiers would annihilate them the second they arrived. I’d pay good money to see that.
“I’m coming to kill you, you sick twisted bastard,” I said aloud and moved down the hallway with confidence in my step and hate burning in my trigger finger.
The first door that I came to, which was on the right, I burst into and caught two more Guards, two I’d never seen before sitting at a single desk playing cards. I drew the handgun on them before they could even blink or even go for their own weapons. “First one of you that says a single word, I’ll put a bullet in your head,” I said with great authority and they both looked scared out of their minds. They couldn’t have been more than twenty-one, twenty-three at the most. “Where’s Professor Smith?”
They both pointed in the direction that I had been going.
“Both of you turn around and get on your knees,” I instructed.
“Please don’t kill us mister, we were only doing what we were told to do,” the Youngest of the two said. I belted him in the head with the Glock and knocked him out cold, pointed the gun at the other one. “You going to do what I say or do I have to repeat what I just told him?”
The remaining Guard did as I instructed and I handcuffed and gagged him, holding the gun to his head fighting the will to pull the trigger. “If you get out of this place, I’d suggest you find a new line of work, because if I ever run into you again, I’ll kill you. Do you understand me?”
He nodded and mumbled something I couldn’t understand with the gag in his mouth. I turned the lights out, locked the door and moved on to the next room just ten feet down the hallway, wondering if this would be the room the Professor would be in, or would I find more Guards?
Eventually my luck would run out and I’d be put into a position where I’d have to shoot someone, which would alert everyone within the complex that there was a shooter on the loose. I had the ammo to handle a few of them, but I really need my SBR, Beretta, and equipment back if I was to have a real shot at pulling this off. And trust me when I say this, I don’t really want that to – no… I do not want it to go that direction.
A Guard emerged from a room to my left I hadn’t even noticed. Luckily he had been talking to someone and backed out of the room as he shut the door. I quickly rushed over and smashed his face into the wall, breaking his nose, and then taking him off balance and slamming him to the hard floor. There’s no telling what kind of damage I had done to him in the process, but he wasn’t a problem anymore. I stood there a moment with the Glock pointed at the door in case whoever he had been talking to heard the commotion and came to investigate.
That’s when I heard Smith’s voice in the room directly behind me. The recklessness that I had tried so hard to quell and keep under wraps instantly exploded and I was no longer concerned about the other person in the room. I turned and headed for the closed door like a man about to exact revenge on the final bad guy in some high budget movie, but I was the antagonist in this flick, not the hero. I wasn’t bulletproof though nor could I withstand a gunshot like happens more time than not in such movies, so I had to be cunning as well or this would be the shortest movie in history.
Choose your battles wisely, my mind told me. Would I listen to it though?
I had to be calculating in my actions, and best believe I was going to be methodical and one of the meanest son of a bitches that has ever lived once I got my hands on this asshole.
Instead of kicking the door in and shooting all of the Guards in the head and wounding Smith as he tried to escape, as would have been depicted in the big budget flick. I decided to simply listen at the door and figure out how many people could be on the other side. No need in dying so soon, after coming this far, out of pure stupidity.
“But I’m not infected you piece of shit! How many times do I have to tell you that?” A voice rang out that I instantly recognized as Johnny’s. The message on the chalkboard had not been a bluff, it was real.
“Then we’ll start with the little one and I’ll let you watch,” Smith said in a sinister tone. “Since you don’t have the balls of a real man, I’ll take my frustrations out on this little one.”
“You’re lucky I’m tied down you sick fucker or I’d rip you to shreds right now!” Johnny stated.
“Such big talk from a small person,” Smith said almost humored by the comment.
I heard no Guards reply to the comment or hit him, so I was sure that Smith was alone.
I grabbed the door knob and turned it, hoping that it would not squeal, which it didn’t. I moved into the room and Johnny saw me, but I quickly put a finger to my lips to keep him quiet.
Smith was to the left part of the room, which was no bigger than any upscale bathrooms you’d find in The Big Apple, yet still bigger than anyone I’ve ever ventured into. The floor under him was covered in blood from previous guests I presumed. He had on a white lab coat, well, the back of it was white anyway, I’m pretty sure the front wasn’t. His hair was a mess and he talked under his breath as he went about laying Kember on a make shift exam table, which at one time or another had been a regular gurney. The bottom had been filled in with cheap flimsy aluminum to c
atch the blood and other body fluids and ran through a narrow tube down into a five gallon bucket that had more than likely been dumped many of times in the past week. He tried his best to get her to stop crying and when that didn’t work he yelled at her. “Shut up you little brat or I’ll make this hurt a lot worse than it has too,” Smith shouted.
“Does it make you feel like a man to yell at a child, you coward?” Johnny asked him.
“If you knew what was coming, you’d keep that loud mouth of yours shut, as I can cause you way more pain than I plan on with this one,” he stated, never looking up from the task of restraining my Daughter to the make shift exam table.
Johnny caught my attention and moved his eyes to the left side of the room where I saw all of our equipment. I silently crossed the room and retrieved my SBR, as it was silent and would alert no one. I thought about cutting Johnny free, although Smith might look up at the wrong time and see me doing this. If he yelled, every security person in the whole complex would be here in just seconds, which really didn’t bother me now. I wanted to kill them all, and I would before this night was over with. However, I didn’t need them arriving at this very moment, as I had to deal with Smith first.
Smith pulled a large needle filled with a clear liquid and yelled at Kember once more. “Be still you little shit or I’m going to make this really hurt!”
“Last chance to change your mind you sick bastard,” Johnny told him. This time he turned his head to give the man a good chewing before continuing with Kember. His eyes caught Johnny, and then something else flashed. He turned even further to see me standing there with the SBR leveled at him.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered.
I fired twice into his right shoulder and he quickly spun and fell against the far wall, grabbing at his wounds. He looked in my direction to see me advancing upon him and suddenly he wanted to push all of the violence and things he’d said away and be logical. “Hold on a second, just hold on and hear me out,” he pleaded.
“I trusted you once before and I woke up in a classroom… that won’t happen a second time,” I told him. “I can promise you that!”
“I say shoot him some more, Brandon,” Johnny announced. “If you don’t smoke this fucker right now, you and I both know he’ll do his best to stop us from leaving. He’s a two-faced rat and the best way to deal with a rat is to kill it!”
“I know how it must look to you, but what I’m doing here is trying to help,” he said with one hand up shielding himself. “I’m trying to find a cure for whatever this is and I need live subjects to test my serums on. If I can get the concoction right and the dosage, then I can end this and get us back to the way we were.” There wasn’t a thread of truth in his words.
It was as if I was watching someone I knew lie to my face and deep down knew that they were simply doing it to keep the consequences of their own actions from surfacing like a dead body in a river. I shot him in the right foot and he fell to the floor, his cries of agony went no further than the small room we were all confined within.
“Test subjects?” I asked him, stunned he could even say that. “I don’t see any test subjects around here. All I see is a bunch of people being tortured to death by some sick maniac who gets off on inflicting pain on others!” I kicked him in his wounded foot and he cried out in pain. “Test subjects volunteer for medication to help, not shit like this. And they aren’t kidnapped off the streets or fooled into a place of safety by a whacko and his guard dogs under false pretenses!” I kicked him again. My mind told me to start shooting him in every place I could think that would cause the most amount of pain and allow him the long, agonizing death he so deserved.
“Give him a taste of his own medicine, literally,” Johnny told me.
I kicked him one last time. “How do you like being my test subject?” I asked him. “Does it feel good and make you think there’s a cure somewhere upon the horizon? Or do you just feel like a victim at the hands of a madman?”
Fake tears streamed down his face. “I’m just trying to help.”
I knelt and picked up the needle, looking at it a few moments. “Since you’re so adamant about having live test subjects and saving the world, how about we try this shit out on you and see what happens?” I asked. “That way you’ll know if it works or not.”
“No wait just a minute –” he was cut off.
“So quick to stick everyone else with it, calling it a possible cure, yet you don’t even want to take part in your own experiment?” Johnny asked.
“What do you think, Johnny?” I asked him. “You think he looks like a good enough test subject to try this shit on?”
“I say stick it in and let him know how it feels,” Johnny responded coldly.
I went to stick him with it and he swiped a scalpel at me, luckily I was quicker and dodged the assault, backed off and shot him in the same foot. He cried out.
“I have twenty-seven more of those and all the time in the world to shoot you in every spot I can think of that will not kill you, but make you wish you were dead,” I explained. “Now then, do you want some more hollow points in other body parts, or would you prefer the needle? Your choice.”
“You idiots have no idea what you are doing! You are destroying mankind with your ignorance!” He said as he held his wounds with both hands. Blood dripped from them and slid to the stained floor.
“And you call murder in the name of science a necessity, asshole!” Johnny told him. “That makes you, not only ignorant, but a hypocrite as well.”
“And to think, all of this could have been avoided if you would have just given me my son and let us leave,” I stated.
“The children that were here have already been tested and expired, so you wasted your time,” Smith said. His words physically ripped my heart to pieces. The world around me that had already crumbled faltered even further under my feet as if the world were imploding at that very second in time. I had failed him, once again. I stumbled backward, unable to stop myself before hitting the wall. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes and the emotions becoming powerful as multiple storms colliding together. A reckoning was coming and anyone within reach was going to pay, one way or the other.
“Brandon, keep it together man,” Johnny stated to me. “He’s fucking with you! Fight it, man. You got to fight it and not give in to him, that’s what he wants.”
The hate quickly filled into the gaps and I was back on the move. I pointed the barrel directly at his face and with every ounce of hell burning hotter and hotter in my eyes, looked at him to find him frightened of me for the first time. His fear was real; I could see it, smell it as though it had its own aroma. “I wonder how bad it would hurt to put a bullet to the left or right of one of your eyes.” I said. “I mean, it shouldn’t kill you since I’m not hitting the brain. How about we try this little experiment and you tell me how it feels.”
“Screw you!” Smith stated, trying his best to cover the fear with fake courage.
I shot him once more in his already injured arm. He howled like a banshee as I smiled.
“Brandon, what are you doing?” Johnny asked me.
“I’m trying to get this experiment thing down, and I’ll admit it is pretty exciting,” I said with glee filling my words. I focused my full attention back upon Smith. “I wonder how many times I can shoot you in the same spot before your arm falls off and you bleed out slowly and painfully?”
Smith held his undamaged arm up at me, the pain on his face told me he had far supposed the threshold of what a normal person could deal with. He was on the verge of passing out or going into shock first. Either way, I didn’t care what happened from this point out.
He had confessed to killing my son, brazenly flaunting it in my face like it had been some major accomplishment. He found delight in my pain, so I would offer him the same opportunity to experience firsthand what true grief was.
“Brandon, think about what you are doing,” Johnny said. “He’s trying to get you to kill him, to t
ake the coward’s way out so he doesn’t have to face the consequences of his actions.”
“No!” I stated harshly. “If he wants to die, then I shall grant him that wish… one bullet at a time.” I put two more bullets into his left shin. What followed was by far the most horrendous amount of agony I have ever witnessed, yet I could do nothing but smile and feel the happiness within me expand.
“We’re going to need him to get out of here!” Johnny stated sternly.
I shoved the barrel of the SBR toward Johnny. “Would you like to fucking join him?”
Johnny leaned back in the chair and said nothing further. I leveled the rifle back at Smith. “Now, where were we?” There was no end or limit for that matter to my hate. I had never been this way before, and although I should be frightened of it, I instead embraced it with open arms.
Smith tried to cut me once again with scalpel, although this time I kicked him in his shoulder and the weapon fell from his grasp. I hauled him onto his feet, delivering a few gut shots with my fist, and then slammed him hard against the wall. Objects were upset, some broke instantly while others fell to the floor and either shattered there or rolled out of the way. I slammed him against the opposite wall, trying my best to inflict as much more pain as possible. I bounced his head off the wall, locked both hands around his throat and looked deep into his eyes.
“Now you’re going to know what real pain is!” I told him and forced his head toward my Daughter. “You see her? That’s my Daughter, the one you were trying to inject that shit into!” I pulled him away from the wall and slammed him into it once more. “Let’s find out what you really know about science fucker!” I jabbed the needle into his neck and squirted every drop of the clear liquid into his body. A look of fear formed in his eyes.
“What have you done?” Smith asked.
I shoved him into the corner of the room, the wall deflected his body and he slid to the floor. I untied Kember, pulling her into my arms and settling her down, as I backed toward the door, making sure that no one was just outside the exam room.
Day One (Book 2): Choices Page 13