“You’re wrong Lewis. We have the secondaries. He might not have been out there long enough, but we have a chance. We just need to get that locker and…”
“ARE YOU A DOCTOR? Huh, Terrence? Can you operate the assay? NO. I suppose you can’t. Huh. Well shit, I suppose we just go mosey out there in the open, breathe in the virus, and get the locker, huh? And then we’ll have the sample. To do what with? Nothing. BECAUSE NONE OF US CAN TEST IT! We have no way of knowing if that vaccine works now. That sample out there is worthless now.”
“Berto could test it, Lewis.”
It was true. Gilberto had some experience with the immunoassay tests. He could try. He had tested for some metastatic antigens in animal illnesses. He could try. Lewis pounded the glass and the lights went out. Anna shuddered next to Terrence.
“What happened?”
“There’s a generator disruption. We need to get to the SOC. Now.”
The group of Bio3 friends shuffled through the dark halls of the final sanctuary, their footsteps lit by dim LED security lights near the floor. They began to run. They sprinted past the atrium and into the cafeteria. A sign ahead said “
Lewis plopped down in front of a monitor bank as the others shuffled in and Gilberto slammed the large steel door shut. The emergency lights came on in the SOC room as the monitors powered up. Lewis wondered aloud:
“Okay, okay. What do we got going on?”
The static of the monitors faded and the cameras focused on the perimeters of Bio3. Nighttime had fallen and the pictures were dark. Gilberto squinted at the monitors:
“Zoom in on the generator yard.”
Lewis nodded and pointed at the screen.
“There. The emergency lights are on in the yard. Gate is locked. I don’t get it. I can see the generator fan blowing. It’s on.”
‘Then it’s a wiring thing. Scan around some more.”
Lewis switched between cameras and scrolled around the perimeter and the inside cameras. He talked aloud, to no one in particular:
“I still don’t see…wait. Shit. “
Lewis looked down at the desktop monitor and a flashing signal coming from the cliffs.
“It’s Stadler.”
“What? He’s dead. What are you talking about Lewis?”
“It’s his remote.”
Lewis scanned up to the cliffs and turned the infrared on the camera. A bloom of revin warmth blurred the screen. Hundreds of them. One of them was holding the blinking signal.
“They have it.”
Stadler’s remote interface was his connection to Bio3. He could monitor the lifelines, message his colleagues, and control almost all operational systems across the facility.
“One of those fucking things has his remote and is messing with the systems. We gotta shut down the remote interface.”
A rectangular light flashed on the monitor in front of Lewis. Gilberto chimed in:
“That’s the shipping area. What signal is that? Is that the main corridor?”
“I don’t fucking know goddamit.”
“Click on it! It is. Oh god. There’s an O2 light. We’re breached. We gotta seal off. The air, Lewis. We can’t…”
“I know. Go back to the gym with everyone and seal off.”
Lewis and Gilberto looked at each other above the flashing monitor.
“What do you mean? Let’s all go, yeah?”
“No. I gotta get Stadler’s locker. It’s open, man. We need to get it and test it now or else its ruined, and then we’re lost. No way we’re gonna send anyone else out there.”
Lewis got up to run out. Anna and Terrence stood back, confused. Gilberto grabbed him and chided:
“You can’t go out without an O2 mask. Let’s find one.”
“Stadler had the last one. In his tent. I’ll get it. Let me go. I gotta go.”
Gilberto watched him run out – his eyes glossing over in a helpless despair.
Lewis ran through the dark hallways of Bio3 and smelled creosote for the first time in years. Like rain on desert soil. He followed the scent around flashing alarm lights and turned a corner and saw the starlit sky of Sonora in front of the east visitor bay. He barreled towards the emergency exit and burst into the night sky. The air filled his lungs and he took a deep breath and surrendered his lungs to the blight. Ahead and to the right he saw an emergency light spotlighting the visitor parking. An old Jetta with UofA vanity plates laid listless in the lot, cobwebs and rot infesting its paneling. Lewis darted past the lot and around the corner, beneath a ridge, and saw Stadler’s viscera.
Lewis took a step then turned to face the revin horde descending the ridgeline from above. The half-scalped mutilator walked slowly behind the rest, eyeing Lewis as he looked in horror at the inhuman mass moving towards him. To the right, Stadler’s body and the locker.
Lewis ran to him. He stumbled down a slight shale slope and into the blood-stained chaos of Stadler’s campsite. Penetralia and bone marrow strewn about the desert floor. The revin’s teeth marks buried deep into a fibula. The doctor’s upper torso crumpled against the exterior of Bio3. Lewis ducked into the tattered tent and found the locker, unscathed. He latched it then looked at the unused O2 mask lying on its side. Outside, he heard pained breaths.
He stepped out of the tent with the locker and looked up the slope, but the revins were not there. Silence. And then panting again. Slowly, Lewis looked behind him at Stadler’s torso. The doctor’s chest cavity pulsed up and down.
“Oh fuck. Erwin.”
Lewis walked over to him and looked at his ruined state. Stadler’s skin was peeled off his upper torso. His arms were torn off at the shoulders. The open sockets shuddered. His entrails spewed out a mess of cruor. A bite mark on the intestine - a sour pinch of shit. One of his eyes was torn out, and his lower jaw broken. Stadler looked in Lewis’ direction and coughed.
Lewis knelt down next to him. The cries and shouts of the revins behind him on the hillside grew closer. Stadler managed out a pained groan to Lewis:
“I couldn’t test it. I’m sorry.”
Lewis nodded and got up to run.
“Wait. There’s a car in the west lot. White truck. Guns inside. Lewis.”
Stadler looked to his left at a bloody rock.
“Don’t leave me here.”
Lewis wiped sweat from his brow and winced. He knew what Stadler wanted. He rushed over to the rock. The cries were coming closer. He picked up the stone and stood over the doctor’s suppurated body.
“Alright. You did well, Erwin.”
He brought the rock down hard on Stadler’s skull, grazing it to the side. The doctor looked back at him, incredulous. Lewis gave him a “my bad” shrug and then brought it back down, hard, again and again. Blood spraying back in front of him. Teeth and skull splintering upwards. He turned and saw the revins watching him from the slope above, quiet and curious.
Lewis ran the opposite direction, the locker clumsily swinging from his grip, and the revins followed. He sprinted through the darkness. The far side of Bio3 in the night like the far side of the moon. The starry sky bathed the desert floor like an iridescent ocean trench. The revins chased him and darted to his left and right at times. They ran with him, chasing a curiosity. They cackled at him and squealed. The chase becoming more fun. One revin ran past him and came back and knocked him down. The pack erupted in an oblivion of laughter. Inhuman. The scalped leader emerged from behind and watched. Lewis dug his hands into the dirt floor, scooping the caliche dust into his palms. He ran.
Lewis’ adrenaline was soaring and he couldn’t feel his feet hit the ground as he ran. The revins picked up again and struggled to keep up with him. Lewis bounded over rocks and around the O2 processors and past the septic channels. He came past the generator yard where they had looked out earlier. He bounded th
rough the solar yard and into the west lot. There was the white truck. He ran to it and tugged on the handle. Locked. He smashed the window with his fist and quickly unlocked it. There was a shotgun and pistol holster. He threw the pistol holster around his neck and loaded the pump action gauge from some shells on the floor. His bloody fist shook as he loaded the last shell. His chest pulsed like a dying animal. Sweat dripped into his eyes and down into the glass splinters in his hand.
He turned and continued his run to the east visitor bay. There they were, at his intersection.
“Okay motherfuckers.”
Lewis pumped the shotgun and tore a hole through the sky towards the revins. Beyond the smoke a high pitched scream. Lewis pulled the forend back again and ran into the darkness of the visitor bay. The long hallway was a void, save for the blinking emergency strobes. Lewis faced the opening and walked backwards. The shadows of the revins appeared in the bay entrance – their limbs and gnarled movements casting a flailing penumbra in the dimlight of the darkening hall behind him.
He raised the stock to his shoulder again and fired down the hallway. A deafening boom through the corridor. Like a monsoon thunderclap. The revins cackled and scattered into the crawl spaces near the bay ramp. Lewis’ ears rang – he couldn’t hear their gibbering and shuffling. He panicked and began to run faster back down the hallway. He ran back to where Gilberto and the others were and kept on into the dark cafeteria. He slammed the double-doors shut and pulled a long bench table towards the door, propping it up on its side. Lewis was hyperventilating. A faint sign in the distance pointed down a hallway towards “Gym.” He poked at his ears. The tinny ring gave way to a clamor and knocking. He looked back at the door. They were ramming into it. Lewis ran towards the Gym sign. The door exploded behind him, a sea of revin bodies pouring into the cafeteria, crawling over each other. Lewis stopped before the Gym corridor and turned to face the horde. He shouted some guttural cry back at the oncoming swarm and fired his shotgun at them. He emptied the entire magazine then pulled the pistol out of the holster around his neck and began firing the 9MM S&W as he walked backwards towards the gym entrance. The revins cried out and scattered in the cafeteria, jumping over each other and onto, over, under the tables. Chairs and napkins erupted into the air.
Lewis slammed the gym corridor door open and quickly kicked it shut behind him. He turned the door lock and ran. At the end of the hallway was an airlock. He cranked the exterior flywheel and ducked inside the clean-room chamber as the airlock door slowly closed behind him. Gilberto was on the other side of the far door and pounded on the viewing glass:
“Lewis, did you get it?”
Lewis held up the locker with Stadler’s sample. Behind him, down the corridor, the locked door into the cafeteria started to rattle. And then shake violently. Lewis looked back at it and then to Gilberto.
“I’m gonna leave the sample in the airlock. Sterilize the room from the panel after I get out.”
“What are you gonna do?”
Lewis looked down at his pistol and pulled open the clip. Empty.
“It’s on you now Gilberto. Make it work. I’m gonna seal the outer door.”
“Lewis! Stay in the airlock and I’ll sterilize it with you in it!”
He shook his head “no” and pointed to his chest.
“It’s in my lungs man. Can’t shake it. Can’t risk it.”
He placed his palm on the viewing window and Gilberto put his to the window as well.
“I gotta move.”
Lewis twisted open the airlock hatch and ducked into the flickering half-light of the dead hall. As the airlock closed behind him, Lewis watched the door handle in the distance begin to twist around the metal, warping the latch panel. He crumpled against the airlock door. Behind him, the alarm sounded in the chamber. A strobe went off inside and the sterilizing gas emitted, obliterating the air inside. The hallway door handle twisted around in the opposite direction and the strike plate bent inwards then sucked into the door. The shrieks from the other side died down as a lone, festered arm slithered in through the door and grabbed at the inside of the door. Its blind fumbling flipped the lock twice, unknowingly, before it clicked and the door slowly creaked open. Lewis looked up and clicked the hallway light switch off. The door opened. The only light was the emergency strobes in the hall, alighting the eyes of the revins as they moved down the corridor. In front, the half-scalped naked male. It held the twisted door handle in his pale hand and came forward in blinks, spectral, as the strobes lit the walls in a staccato light.
Lewis looked at the floor. The revins descended on him from behind this alpha creature. As it got closer, Lewis looked up and saw the alpha – his death. It smelled of creosote and sulfur. Its hand – nails torn back and putrescent – gripped the handle hard, fingers white. Lewis and the alphas eyes met. It, he, stopped in its tracks and looked down at Lewis. They looked at each other and Lewis could feel himself being studied. Pitied. Above him, Gilberto looked into the dark hall and shone a flashlight into the revin horde. Their eyes caught in the glow. The alpha looked up at Gilberto and then brought the handle down like a hammer into Lewis’ skull. And again. Lewis managed a gargled gasp and shout. His hands flailing upwards as the alpha brought the handle down again. Bone fragment and hair exploded into the viewing pane. Spraying onto the lips of the alpha who inhaled the trauma and grinned.
Gilberto ducked back into the gym, twisting the inner airlock shut behind him. Terrence and Anna sat on a weight bench, terrified, comforting the girl. They looked up at him as he hurried into the room and knelt down, unclasping the locker. He stopped and faced them all. The last of them, there in a gym in the depths of Salvation Outpost Zero. With little hope, and under siege from starving revins.
Gilberto took the sample out and ran over to a mobile tray table set up by the free weights. On the top was a complicated immunoassay. Gilberto took the vial and loaded it into an empty cylinder on the assay and activated the test from a laptop on the tray table. As the cylinders spun and whirred around the assay, Gilberto reviewed the results from a scatterplot on his laptop.
The girl wondered aloud what the noise was outside the door. She looked at Anna and Terrence and smiled. Anna rubbed the saline from her cheeks.
Gilberto looked around the dusty gym. In the rush, they managed to grab just a few things: the assay, the secondary cooler, a few cans of food, one jug of water, and three blankets. As the cylinders spun around the assay, Gilberto began to think about how they’d get out. And what they would do if they did. He looked around the gym. No way out except through the airlock.
The assay beeped three times and came to a halt. The loaded cylinder lit a green light on the clasp and the scatterplot blinked “NON-REACTIVE.” Gilberto opened the cooler and removed four syringes. He turned to Anna and Terrence.
“It works.”
3. Dysplasia
DDC39 rolled along the broken I-10, headways into a warm air monsoon. The rain streamed down the tri-axel and puddled in the weathered cracks of the highway asphalt. It drove on and reached a large obstruction – a series of crash barriers stacked like a castle wall, filled with stagnant water. It scanned the periphery, pulsing once – nothing. As it drove around the side of the massive wall, DDC39 scanned a sign in the distance: “Marana High School.” Zooming in, it found the high school football field, surrounded by razor wire. There was a pile of desiccated corpses at the 50-yard line.
When the plague reached its peak, the municipalities, at odds with the federal government, took extreme measures to try and contain the spread of the virus, which was still thought to be passed from lung to lung. Volunteer posses donned hazmat suits, coerced from biotech firms, and went door to door with rifles. There was a simple eye check at that time. If your pupil tracked a penlight, you were given paper breathers and told to stay inside. If it didn’t track, you were “rescued” and taken for treatment. Families were told to call a hotline for information. But the lines went dead quickly. And no one dared v
enture too far from their home. When you walked away with the hazmat posse, that was the last you’d see of your family, and probably the last time your cognition processed memories of them.
You wound up in a containment area. Sometimes it was an indoor gym. Sometimes it was a tent encampment. Towards the end, it wound up being scrapyards, golf courses, the zoo. At the peak of hysteria, Tucson hazmat posses were dumping semi trailers into the Pima Air and Space Museum, lined with a massive chain-link fence. 18-wheeler cargo holds would be parked up against the B-36 Peacemaker, filled with grandmothers, professors, lacrosse players – and a pallet of bread. Varying levels of sanity, pounding on the aluminum walls. They’d hear shouting next to them, in the darkness, unaware that a whole retirement community was desperately clawing at the locked tour bus windows right next door. Some broke out. Eventually, their cortical tissue decayed and they went wild, flailing at the locked enclosures. They broke their hands on the locks and forced their way out. They’d urinate in their hands to parch the thirst of the blazing sun. Helghast of the Sonora. They who they were as humans, and carried with them the experience of being left to die. They lost their memories and gained a hatred towards those who still had their cognition. In the dry desert air, they’d inhale their first breaths in this new demented freedom. The glass windows of the WW2 bombers shone back and they looked up, confused and in awe. Some latent spark would fire deep. They’d crowd around the tattered landing gear, crawling up, and find themselves sliding into the pilot seat. The blank bombardiers of the new apocalypse.
Archon of the Covenant Page 2