Domain of the Dead

by Iain McKinnon

  The man was old but energetic, with a complexion that looked as weathered as his ship. He reminded Sarah of her great uncle. His stride was confident and his face reflected a hard fought life, no scars just well worn with rough and sagging skin. The man’s hat looked old in comparison to his uniform, as old perhaps as his thin translucent skin, but its millered perfection outshone the baseball style caps the rest of the crew wore.

  “Captain Warden, let me introduce our guests.” Dr. Robertson gestured with her hand. “This is Sarah, Nathan and Jennifer.”

  “Let me extend my sympathies,” Captain Warden said. “I hear from Private Bates and Private Chernov that you lost companions this morning.”

  “We did,” Sarah said. Both she and Nathan dropped their gaze at the thought. Sarah composed herself. “Thank you, Captain. I don’t know what we would have done if your men hadn’t come along.”

  “You’re lucky they did,” Dr. Robertson said as she labelled Jennifer’s sample. “I’m surprised you had the strength to make it to the helicopter.” She turned her head to face the captain as she worked on the samples. “Captain, both Sarah and Nathan are malnourished. Another few weeks and I don’t think they could have made it. I’ll give them all vitamin shots, but other than that it’s just a matter of diet.”

  “Good.” Captain Warden looked around the small medical bay as if he were looking for some lost item. “I’ve asked Commander Patterson to arrange some quarters.” Unable to locate the imagined object, he addressed Sarah. “Once you’ve had time to get cleaned up, I’d like to invite you to the Captain’s table for supper. I’m sure we all have a lot of questions.”

  Sarah and Nathan thanked him.

  “Doctor Robertson, where is Professor Cutler?”

  “He’s working on an important culture right now,” Dr. Robertson said, her voice flat and clipped.

  “Wasting more specimens?” Captain Warden said.

  Doctor Robertson put down what she was working with, turned and folded her arms. “No, he’s working on cultures. Those are the small round dishes.”

  Captain Warden’s face flushed red as he jabbed a nicotine-stained finger in Dr. Robertson’s direction. “Don’t...” He lowered his hand and took an audible breath. He cast his eyes over the survivors before steeling his gaze once more on Dr. Robertson. “This is a conversation for later. In the meantime you have another patient to attend to.” Captain Warden called into the corridor, “Private Chernov.”

  “Yes, sir,” Angel replied in her creamy Russian lilt.

  She came to the door, but didn’t enter, unwilling to add to the already crowded room. Instead she stood in the corridor supporting her injured arm with her good one.

  “What seems to be the matter?” Dr. Robertson asked.

  Captain Warden stepped out of the line of view so that the doctor could see the deep purple bruise emanating from Angel’s elbow.

  A disembodied voice billowed down the corridor, “Is the Captain with you?”

  “Yes, Commander,” Angel spat out the harsh K like it was an insult.

  “Ah, Commander Patterson,” Captain Warden said as Patterson popped into view from round the door. “Would you show our guests to their quarters? They’ve had quite a day and I’m sure they’d like to freshen up.”

  “Certainly, sir. This way please.” Patterson beckoned the survivors out into the corridor.

  Doctor Robertson called after the trio, “Before you go, we’ll need to monitor you for a few months. I won’t know for sure until I’ve run a few more tests, but it’s a good bet you’ve suffered liver damage. I’d recommend no alcohol until we’ve had a good few weeks of recovery.”

  Sarah and Nathan nodded.

  As they squeezed into the corridor, Patterson stepped past them back into the medical room. He reported, “Sir, we’ve have a weather update from the Azores. Hurricane Emily has changed course and is heading north. The leading edge should we with us in about six hours.”

  “Damn!” The broken capillaries on the Captain’s face flared red again. “What’s the rating?”

  “It’s a category three, which means we’re in no danger we can simply hove to, but...”

  “But we can’t land the chopper in a storm,” Warden surmised.

  “Idris has already refuelled and started pre-flight checks.”

  “On whose orders?” Captain Warden asked.

  “No one’s, sir.”

  “Does he know about the storm?”

  Patterson nodded.

  “The times don’t add up, Mister Patterson. He’d never beat the storm back.”

  “I agree, sir,” Patterson said.

  “Very well. Tell Idris to stand down on the rescue mission.” Captain Warden covered his mouth with his hand and gently pinched his nose as if he were about to clear his cyanosis.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Patterson acknowledged as he exited. He nodded to Sarah and Nathan. “If you’ll come this way…”

  “Now I’ve got two of my best men stranded on the mainland with no hope of a rescue until this storm passes,” Warden snarled out the last of his livid breath with, “All because of you!”

  “What do you mean because of me?” Doctor Robertson said indignantly.

  “You and your damn specimens!” Captain Warden looked ready to draw an angry fist along the row of blood-filled test tubes. “I’ve lost eight people because of your insane experiments, Doctor.”

  “Losses are a regrettable part of—”

  “If you and Frankenstein would stop wasting specimens…” Warden butted in. He shuddered and swallowed down his rage, standing contemplating for a moment, before speaking again. “Private Chernov, give me and the Doctor a few moments alone, please.”

  “Aye, sir.” Angel turned and stepped down the corridor, still cradling her wounded arm.

  Captain Warden closed the door to the medical bay. “Anything I should know about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The survivors!” Warden snapped.

  “If you mean bite or scratch marks, then the answer’s no.”

  “Any sign of the contagion?”

  “No.” Dr. Robertson knew where the Captain’s questioning was leading. “If it does use a carrier I doubt any of them are it.”

  “You’ll run the blood testing regardless.”

  “Of course I will, but we’ve never found a symptomless carrier and I don’t think we ever will. It’s just too damned invasive.” Dr. Robertson could see the Captain’s jaw twitch. “And before you ask your next question, no it has not gone airborne on the mainland.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Captain Warden demanded.

  Dr. Robertson despaired at the Captain’s lack of scientific knowledge. She pulled her hand from her lab coat pocket and gestured in the direction the survivors had been led. “For one, these people wouldn’t have lasted this long if it had gone airborne. Secondly, I doubt there are any more survivors on the mainland to get infected. The contagion has effectively stopped spreading because there is no one left to spread it to. That means less chance for it to interact and less opportunity for it to mutate.”

  Teeth clenched to hold back some of his anger, Captain Warden growled, “You said it yourself, less of a chance.”

  “There is always a margin for error in science,” Dr. Robertson said unapologetically, “but it’s almost impossible.”

  “Just as impossible as the dead attacking the living!” Captain Warden bellowed.

  Dr. Robertson felt chastised. “That’s unfair, Captain, and you know—”

  “Unfair or not I have to weigh every possibility. If I just had my crew to worry about then the scales would have tipped against you and your arrogant boyfriend long ago, but I don’t just have the responsibility of this crew on my hands, so you’ll have to excuse me if I’m cautious.” His brow furrowed as he remembered what had angered him in the first place. “Anyway, where is Dr. Frankenstein? I gave orders for both of you to examine the survivors.”

  “Pr
ofessor Cutler,” Doctor Robertson stressed the pronunciation of his name, “is in his lab and he doesn’t appreciate it when people call him that.”

  Captain Warden violently brought his fist down on the work surface. The thump set the vials of blood shuddering in their stand. “Appreciate it or not, I gave orders for both of you to conduct the examination.”

  Dr. Robertson’s jaw fell slightly open. “Professor Cutler was at a crucial point in his research and didn’t think it necessary to—”

  “Necessary!” the Captain shouted.

  Dr. Robertson flinched at the ferocity of the Captain’s bark.

  “I’ve had it with him disobeying my orders. You tell him I want a report on his crucial research by nineteen hundred hours tonight.”

  “The supply ship’s not due to pick up our research for another seven—”

  “I said I want it on my desk tonight!”

  Although stunned by the Captain’s aggression, Dr. Robertson was now angry at both the captain for being so disrespectful and at herself for taking it. She snapped, “Tell him yourself! I don’t take orders from you!”

  To demonstrate her indignity she stepped past the Captain and opened the door to let him out. As she pulled the door open, Captain Warden took a grip of her arm. Dr. Robertson looked down at the rough hand squeezing her bicep. The grip was forceful and tight enough to cut off the circulation. Her first thought was to say you’re hurting me but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. He stared deep into her eyes. His were watery and pale, like the blue had been leeched from them by years of harsh weather. They sat in eyeballs the colour of parchment as if tainted by the nicotine of his habitual smoking. Trails of red blood vessels threaded their way over the tarnished white.

  “As long as this is my ship,” Captain Warden hissed, “you and everyone on it follow my orders.”

  “Or what?” Her defiance wasn’t past her lips before she regretted it. Warden could be dangerous but Dr. Robertson had faith that her special status would protect her. Her regret was that her lapsed restraint would bring down a tirade of complaining.

  “I have the authority to destroy this ship and everyone onboard if I deem it necessary. You, me, your boyfriend, everyone. What makes you think I’d be any less willing to kill any one of you? Hell, you give me a reason to execute the both of you and this pleasure cruise is over.” He let go of her arm, subconsciously emphasising his point. “Me and the crew could sail straight back to St Helena for some R & R. There’s not a soul onboard who would say no to that.”

  “And risk getting posted to the South Island?” Doctor Robertson pointed out. “You wouldn’t.”

  “No?” Warden challenged.

  Suddenly it dawned on Dr. Robertson that this might not be an idle threat. Maybe the years out on the open water had drained him of more than his eye colour. She said defensively, “You wouldn’t. You know how important our work is here.”

  “Important?!” Captain Warden snapped back. “You could kill us all! What little is left of humanity could die if you fuck up! Christ, it’s hard enough losing good men to your work, and today’s foray may well have added to the death toll you and Frankenstein have inflicted.”

  Dr. Robertson changed tack. “It’s still better than the risk you’d be taking clearing out W.D.’s in New—”

  “You work out this risk Doctor,” Captain Warden broke in. “You and your twisted boyfriend better start showing me some results and some respect starting with that report, nineteen hundred hours tonight!” He stepped out of the medical bay. “Or the things tied up in your lab will be the least of your worries.”

  He turned and barged past Angel.

  Dr. Robertson placed her palm to her forehead and let out a long breath of exasperation. She quivered slightly as the last of the air slipped out. There was a slight pause before she composed herself and started breathing normally again.

  A Russian voice shook her from her introversion.

  “We have term in Russia for people like him,” Angel said as she entered the room. “Zasranec.” Angel judged by her expression that Dr. Robertson’s grasp of Russian wasn’t sufficient enough for a translation. “It means asshole.”

  Dr. Robertson let a smile rise on her exasperated face.

  Angel smiled back. “Now would you look at my arm?”

  Chapter 3: Gathering Storm

  A grey hand flexed over the clean linen. With shattered nails it rasped its mummified fingers over the cloth. A patch of grime showed where the hand had been clawing.

  Professor Cutler turned the valve on the cannula protruding from the pawing hand and flicked a switch. Whirring to life, a pump started sucking half congealed vitriol from the corpse. The white tape that secured the tubing to the pallid flesh was in stark contrast to the dark brown fluid that oozed out. The cadaverous gunk trickled into a beaker at the side of the gurney.

  With milky eyes, the unwilling subject followed its tormentor around the lab. The zombie would like nothing more than to sink its teeth into the flesh of its captor but the thick leather straps held it firmly down. The creature tried to give out a moan but the ball gag in its mouth stifled its plaintive call to a soggy gurgle.

  Before the Rising, Professor Cutler had likened many of his contemporaries to zombies, dull minded and slavish creatures. Again and again his maverick ideas had been dismissed by the hierarchy of academia. Time and time again, Professor Cutler’s work had stood up to his peers’ scrutiny. Eventually the establishment had been forced to acknowledge this young genius. Now he was the world’s leading expert on Virology. Professor Cutler liked to think that it was in spite of most of his former colleagues being turned into actual zombies.

  Satisfied that he had enough of the brown sludge, Professor Cutler twisted the valve closed with his latex-clad fingers and walked across to his workbench. He sat down on the high wooden stool beside the microscope and placed his macabre sample in front of him. Turning round, he walked past a second, empty, gurney. It had been set up to receive one of the fresh specimens from the mainland that never arrived. He made a mental note that he should tidy it away as he drew up to the lab’s fridge. On the front was a notice in his own handwriting: ‘Medical samples only. No food or drink.’

  He had originally written, ‘No consumables,’ but Amy, (Doctor Robertson as he called her in public,) argued the need for such a sign since no one used the lab other than them.

  Professor Cutler felt he eloquently argued the hypothetical merits of his protocol. Whether Amy had finally seen his point or simply grown bored of a fruitless debate, she had relented. As a parting shot, though, she had sunk his original sign by pointing out the rest of the crew wouldn’t know what consumables meant.

  Professor Cutler pulled on the chrome handle and looked inside. On the top shelf at the front was a carousel neatly cradling a dozen vials on two levels. An ideogram in yellow lettering and swirling black tendrils adorned the container: ‘Danger - Biohazard’

  Cutler plucked one of the vials free. Another label in Professor Cutler’s handwriting was stuck on the Perspex. It simply read ‘S-117a’.

  Upon shutting the fridge door, there was a sharp click and the compressor hummed to life, the appliance determined to compensate for the intruding warmth of the lab.

  The zombie strapped to the gurney writhed as it watched the human pace the room, its unwavering gaze fixed on its prey. The Professor ignored its dissent with the same mundane disregard he held for the humming fridge.

  Setting the vial down next to the microscope, he opened up one of the many cupboards and pulled out a syringe and a line of plastic hose.

  Like a junkie, Professor Cutler bound up his arm with the plastic tubing and sunk the needle into the most promising-looking vein. The nape of his elbow looked like a reconnaissance photo from some bombing campaign, pockmarked and scabbed in pinpricked increments. He drew yet another syringe full and taped a plaster over the leak.

  The last item for the impending experiment was a fresh petri
dish. He lined his equipment up in a neat row to the right of the microscope: the syringe of fresh blood, the empty petri dish, the vial of serum and finally the beaker of fluid from the cadaver. All the pieces in place, he pulled two new pipettes from a drawer in the desk and unwrapped them from their sterile casing. The wadded-up wrappers were squashed into a ball and tossed across the room towards a waste paper bin in the far corner. It hit the wall above the bucket and tumbled down onto the rim of the bin. Hitting the edge, it bounced and fell unsuccessfully onto the tiled floor.

  Professor Cutler gave a huff of disgust. He flicked on the computer attached to the underside of the desk. It was an old beige thing, yet another symbol of the under-resourcing he’d had to deal with. The hard drive churned and clunked as the cooling fan gathered speed to a steady purr. Light emitting diodes blinked red and yellow and green as the relic wheezed to life. The only modern looking thing about Professor Cutler’s computer equipment was the large black box that housed the uninterrupted power supply. Like the beige box it sat beside, it too was signaling with bursts of traffic sequence lights. The ship’s erratic diesel engines and the decades old wiring competed to short out Professor Cutler’s hard drives, hence the necessity for an emergency power supply.

  A sharp beep drew Professor Cutler’s attention to the monitor as it flickered on, revealing bright white lines of bootup prompts against the black.

  Sometimes the computer would just freeze up at this point, usually in hot weather or if it had crashed after a prolonged amount of use. The screen jumped again, this time showing the operating system’s front window. A ribbon of rainbow colours softly paraded below the company logo. Content the machine was working, he ambled over to the bin to retrieve the wayward rubbish.

  With his long fingers, he scooped up the packaging and dunked it into its rightful place in the bin.

  Cutler’s tall, thin physique would have made him most people’s first choice for their basketball team, but the truth was his academic work had always taken precedence. At school he had excelled in all his subjects including sports, but as soon as the opportunity arose he had abandoned everything that didn’t support his love of biology. He still had the same mop of chocolate brown hair he had when he left school some twenty years ago. What’s more, his exodus at age seventeen to university and the seclusion of a laboratory had protected his skin from the ravages of natural light. Other than losing the acne, he had retained a youthful appearance. Unlike most other people, the Rising hadn’t drained him. Cutler knew he didn’t look his age. Part of him hoped it was his boyish looks that had attracted Amy to him, but he knew it had more to do with the lack of men with an I.Q. above one hundred onboard ship. The pragmatist he was saw no point in worrying about Amy’s reasons; just accept it and enjoy it.