by Wood, Rick
“Well here it is. Where’s the basement?”
“The basement? Are you seriously going to make us sleep above this thing!”
“It’ll be tied up, relax.”
Desert still looked at him with an intense glare of you are crazy.
“Just get out of my way,” Gus demanded, fed up.
He dragged the infected to a doorway that he presumed led to the basement. The infected snarled as it bumped down the steps.
Gus found a pipe running across the ceiling and he attached the other side of the cable to it with numerous swift knots.
He made his way back up the steps and, once he’d shut the door behind him, looked for a way to lock it. Without a lock, he grabbed a chair from the kitchen and propped it against the handle.
“You are seriously fucked up,” Desert said. “So is this.”
“I will not leave this door,” Gus said. “I will guard it day and night. You don’t need to worry.”
“But you–”
“Look – you told me if I could get one of the infected and appeal to some kind of emotion, you’d help save Donny, yeah?”
“Yeah, but I never thought you’d actually–”
“Well I have. So get over it. And give it this one chance. Okay?”
Desert backed down, but still solemnly shook her head, as if pitying a helpless idiot.
“I still think this is stupid.”
“Like I give a shit.”
Gus barged past her and into the kitchen, searching out some water. Catching this thing had been thirsty work and he didn’t want to spend another minute with Desert.
Not because she was wrong.
Because she was right.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Donny leant his head against the hard softness of the padded wall.
Are you going to kill me like you did Janine Stanton?
He hadn’t killed her.
It was a lie.
The girl had.
Hadn’t she?
In all honesty, he wasn’t even sure who he had killed.
He felt bad about it. There was something resembling a conscience, though it was musky and blurred and faraway.
An abrupt itch on his neck made him scratch at his collar.
Why didn’t he take it off?
I can’t.
Why did he attack those people?
Because I must.
Where was Janine Stanton?
I should hate her.
He should.
Stanton injected him. Pushed needles into his skin and wrote stuff on paper and clipboards and watched him as he writhed and hurt and she always watched and wrote and watched and wrote and watched and wrote and–
But she wasn’t like the others.
Not like Eugene who petted him but it wasn’t a nice pet it was patronising like something he shouldn’t be doing but he did and Donny let him because…
Because…
I must.
It was his reason, his cause, and his excuse.
But Stanton…
She pushed that stuff into him and watched him change but she never petted him. She never patronised him.
In fact, she spoke to him.
No one ever spoke to him. Not unless it was a command, or an instruction, or some kind of experiment or game like they did when they were teaching him how to…
How to what?
But Janine.
She was nice. She never seemed willing to do those horrible things she did to him and he loved her for it.
He had to cooperate.
Why?
Because I must.
He was strapped to a chair but that meant nothing.
He’d never hurt her.
Or would he?
Are you going to kill me like you did Janine Stanton?
Did he kill her?
Did he do it because he must?
He didn’t want to.
It was the aggression, the desire to feed, to hurt, to find a way to peel away their skin and graze on what was beneath.
I must.
I must.
I must I must I must I must I must.
Janine Stanton was a kind woman. She spoke to him.
He never replied, but she still spoke.
They had full conversations he was never part of.
He had watched her die.
Had he done it?
I must.
Wait, what?
He must what?
Footsteps passed the door and he leapt to his feet but they kept on walking and eventually they stopped.
They left.
Like everyone leaves.
I must.
Must what?
Hurt?
Kill?
Feed?
He collapsed onto his back. The ceiling was spinning. The padding was uncomfortable on his spine.
I must.
That’s right, Donny.
You must.
Now there’s a good boy.
Chapter Twenty-Six
With a few clumsy knocks and bangs Gus managed to get the kitchen chair through the narrow doorway to the basement. He hoisted it over his shoulder and began his descent, wondering if the infected was at all dormant – but the snarls and yaps had already intensified before his prosthetic limb even met the second step.
The zombie pulled and dragged and heaved and tugged on the restraint fixed around its throat, opening and closing its jaw, desperate to be fed.
Gus wretched as he reached the bottom step. The stench of decay and rot met him like a sucker-punch to the gut. The stink seemed to have attached itself to every part of the room. It clung to the walls, mixing with the damp, sullying the air. Even his clothes seemed to stink of it.
He placed his chair beneath the light – a single bulb gently illuminating the room and casting the walls and corners in shadow.
The infected did not give in. It reached out its arms and pulled on the cable with as much vigour and strength as it could muster. Gus thought he saw the drainpipe give a little, and wondered if their superior strength might be too much for this weak house – but something seemed to be making it slower. Starvation, possibly. He had no idea how many survivors were even left; for all he knew, it could have been out there a long time without feeding.
Gus withdrew his knife and held it in the air.
“I’m putting this down,” he said.
The infected didn’t even look at the knife. It reached desperately for Gus.
Nevertheless, Gus placed the knife on the floor behind him.
“I’m doing this to show you that I am unarmed,” he continued. “And that there is trust here.”
He stood and lifted his top, turning in a full circle, then lifted his left trouser leg to expose a naked ankle.
“And you can see there are no guns on me. I am completely unarmed. Because there is trust.”
The infected couldn’t give less of a shit.
It didn’t seem to understand a word – and, what’s more, it didn’t seem to care. Its pulling and snapping and reaching just continued with the same enthusiasm it had since Gus had entered the basement.
“Right,” Gus decided. “Shall we begin?”
He pulled a book from his back pocket.
He ran his thumb over the cover. Flicked the browned pages and coughed on puffs of dust.
“I’m going to read you some of this book,” Gus said. “I have no idea what happens in it, but it’s my favourite book.”
He sighed.
This was already taking a lot from him, and he’d barely started.
“The Ever-present,” Gus announced, showing the infected the title.
Already, he was wiping his eyes on his sleeve, fighting an image of Laney snuggled up to him, her eyes slowly closing then suddenly opening as she adamantly stayed awake. He could still smell the shampoo from her bath, could still feel her small hands resting on the rough skin of his palm, could still hear her insistence that they kept going.
He huffed. Composed himself. Opened to the first page.
“It was a tough day,” he began. “But it was never tough enough for Roy.”
He stopped.
He dropped the book to his knees.
Maybe he should find another?
No. This is the book that meant the most to me.
He had to show emotion. Had to display those thoughts and feelings he had buried behind his spiralling thoughts.
“He could take a cast-iron morning,” he began again, forcing confidence to his voice, “and turn it into a fluffy afternoon.”
He ignored another image of Laney, begging him not to stop, begging for just another page.
“His hands were rough from working, and his belly hard from drinking, but underneath, his soul was as elegant and beautiful as a soul ever could be.”
He looked up at the infected.
Nothing had changed.
Its eyes were wide, dilating at the sight of meat.
It pulled and stretched and grasped and snatched.
Gus ignored it.
“He worked hard, day and night,” he persevered. “Tooth and nail, as his old man would say – though his teeth were sparse and his nails broken.”
Please, Daddy, just one more page…
“Still, he worked tooth and nail, as it is said, until he had enough to provide his child with central heating and a puppy and…”
Don’t stop, Daddy.
“…every other pleasure…”
Please go away.
“…he could dote upon them.”
He dropped the book. Stood and kicked the chair across the room.
The infected reached for him.
He stood closer. Close enough that the stale fingers of the dead could brush against his collar.
“You don’t feel anything, do you?”
No let up.
No rest.
No pause in its hunger.
He grabbed the book and stuffed it into his back pocket.
“This is so stupid,” he told himself, and marched up the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As soon as Eugene received the call, he was out of his office and down the corridor with a haste his legs could barely keep up with.
He felt giddy.
Like a child.
Shaking with glee.
By the time he’d reached the laboratory he was practically bouncing. He paused, willed himself to calm down, told himself that he still had an image to portray and he would not command respect if he acted like an excitable schoolboy.
Not that he commanded respect, anyway.
But that was about to change.
He smoothed down his collar, straightened his tie, and entered, slowly and particularly, looking around and enjoying the hush that descended over the room upon his appearance.
Doctor Charles Moore saw Eugene and sighed, keeping his hesitation inside.
Eugene ignored the subordination. This was too good a day.
“Well?” Eugene prompted. “I’m here. Where is it?”
“This way,” Charles reluctantly answered.
He led Eugene across the laboratory and to a microscope.
“What the bloody hell is this? Where is it?”
“Please, look.”
Eugene looked through the microscope.
He saw something that even his unscientific yet twisted, ambitious mind understood. Splodges of red blood cells swam around until they were helplessly engulfed by larger splodges, turning a darker red, then throbbing and convulsing. When the petri dish smashed, Eugene jumped back and clapped.
“Marvellous!” he said. “Just marvellous!”
“I’m glad you’re pleased with it,” Charles said insincerely.
“And have you created a synthesis?”
Charles nodded and led Eugene over to his desk. There, on the desk, sat a needle, prominent yet unassuming. Full of a dark greenish red substance, ready and waiting for use.
“Do you have more?”
“No, this is the only one.”
“Good. I don’t want you to produce anymore.”
“What?” Charles’s mouth fell agape. He thought Eugene wanted to enhance his army – why would he not want more?
Was all of this work for nothing?
Eugene grinned at Charles’s confusion.
“I would like you to destroy all notes, all research, all samples, aside from this one here.”
“But – but why?”
“You hated creating this, didn’t you? I could tell. Yet now you are fond of it?”
“It’s just… the work that has gone into it…”
Eugene ignored the pathetic cries of a grown man and lifted the needle, holding it before his eyes, marvelling at it. The liquid inside did not stay still – it thrashed and pushed against its plastic containment. It was practically alive already, without even needing a host.
“Tell me,” Eugene said. “How is this better than the gene we already have?”
“Oh, it’s better all right,” Charles said. “There’s more of the infection in it, but it’s more controlled – we have managed to pull out elements of the gene and neglect some others. The strength, the speed, the hostility – it’s all been enhanced. The mindless wandering is gone, but you will need to bear in mind that may affect the obedience.”
“That’s fine. There doesn’t need to be any obedience.”
Charles frowned. Eugene waited for him to muster up the courage to say what was on his mind, so much so Eugene grew irritable and had to prompt him.
“Say it,” Eugene commanded. “What?”
“It’s just – if you don’t mind my asking, sir – why did you want us to work so hard on it if you only want one sample?”
Eugene’s grin widened, turning all the more intensely lecherous.
He stuck the needle into his arm and plunged down slightly.
“How much do I need?” Eugene asked.
“Erm, that much should have the effect, any more would–”
Eugene cut Charles off by pushing down upon the injection until all of the substance had entered his body. He took the empty needle out and discarded it.
He closed his eyes.
Waited for it.
“How long should it take?” Eugene demanded.
“Erm, well, the infection usually takes minutes, if that.”
Eugene nodded.
Minutes weren’t needed.
He could already feel it. A grand dizziness. A superior headrush.
He collapsed to his knees. Bent over. Hunched. Shaking.
He spat blood, spraying it over the clean, hard surface of the floor.
He wobbled, falling onto his back, convulsing, until he was seizing, foam bubbling out his mouth.
No one did anything.
Charles watched abhorrently.
It wasn’t like anyone wanted to save him. No one shouted for a medic, or first aid. No one attempted to administer it. This was Eugene’s own stupid fault.
The seizure stopped.
Eugene lay there, his eyes wide open yet unmoving, staring at the ceiling. Dormant. Frozen. Stiff.
“Mr Squire?” Charles asked, then looked to his approaching colleagues, a smile spreading from cheek to cheek.
“I think he’s dead!” Charles said hopefully.
But he wasn’t.
Eugene’s chest rose into the air, his fingers clutched into a fist, his face morphing into a snarl, his entire body contorting and wriggling until he was standing, his breath heavy, heaving, panting, sweating.
His eyes grew wide and red.
His body grew muscle that wasn’t there before.
His breath exuded from his lips in a grateful snarl.
“You pleased for my death, were you?” Eugene said, his posh voice mixed with the sinister low-pitched rumble of an earthquake.
“N – n – no!”
Eugene grabbed Charles by the throat and lifted him into the air.
“I think you
were.”
He squeezed his fist and Charles choked. Charles tried battering against Eugene’s arm, but it was like a rat wriggling in a human’s fist.
Charles’s throat snapped and his head lilted to the side.
Eugene dropped Charles and turned to the other scientists.
In less than a minute he walked out of the laboratory, a bloody mess left behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A few heavy steps and the slamming of the basement door preceded Gus’s entry to the kitchen.
“How’s it going?” Desert asked. “You best friends yet?”
At first, Gus ignored the comment. Then he decided he wasn’t prepared to take any grief from her, and he launched a glass that she quickly dodged and watched smash into the wall behind her.
“Jesus!” she said.
“Baby steps,” Gus grunted, taking a few swigs of water.
“Look, Gus, I–”
“If the next words out of your mouth are another taunt or argument or any kind of bullshit then keep them.”
“It wasn’t, I was just going to say–”
“Oh my god,” Whizzo declared, interrupting both of them. He quickly began sifting through the rest of the paper, finding lists of drugs.
“What?” Gus asked.
“This is it. This is what they created. They used the infection, but they are better – this is what it was meant for. Sadie was the beginning, she…”
Whizzo trailed off. Looked through a few more sheets of paper.
“And there’s this countdown I keep coming back to, for a few days’ time. I just don’t get what it means.”
“Let me ask you a question,” Gus said. “Is there anything about his daughter in there? Records of her being lost in London?”
“Yeah, actually, I think there is.”
Whizzo sorted through another few pages and found it.
“Details of a mission statement. Gus Harvey and Donny Jevon going to London to rescue his daughter. Laney.” He looked to Gus. “I thought she wasn’t his daughter?”
“She wasn’t. He just wanted a record of his daughter supposedly being in London when it was bombed.”
“Who bombed it?” Whizzo asked, then realised he’d read something about this, and sifted eagerly through a few more pages.
“Some of his allies.”
“Here it is,” Whizzo said. “China, France, among a few – but it doesn’t say they were allies. It records their bombing of London as an attack.”