by Katz, Gayle
Still upset from being careless with the earpiece, I stare at the destroyed device as she lifts up her foot. Quick as lightning, she grabs me by the hair and throws me back up against the wall. Stunned, and trying desperately to get breath back into my lungs, I look up and see Brie staring at me.
“Get up and fight!” she yells.
“What? No. Why are we fighting? We’ve got to stop Malik.”
“Malik is just fine. You however, I’ve had just about enough of you!”
“I don’t understand. I just saw you try to stop him.”
“No, I didn’t. Your eyes must be playing tricks on you.”
“You’re crazy.”
“And you’ve been a thorn in my side ever since Lance tossed you my way.”
“You should have just let me go.”
“I couldn’t! The cure is all that mattered. And now that we have it, we don’t need you anymore. Get up on your feet!”
Perched on one knee, breathing heavily, and rising to get on my feet, Brie runs toward me like a juggernaut and throws me up against the wall yet again, knocking my head against it. Winded, I push her away, but she’s relentless, coming back at me fast. I manage to get some distance between myself and the wall so that I can try to throw some punches her way, but she’s fast and I only punch the air. Going on the offense isn’t working. Defense might be better. Hiking my arms up to protect my face, Brie gets closer and socks me in the cheek. I stumble back, but keep my balance. She comes up to me again, but before she can punch, I use my right foot and kick her in the stomach. She falls back a step or two, but seems abnormally resilient, like my kick did almost nothing to her.
“Not even fighting dirty can help you.” Brie punches me in the face and then manages to roundhouse kick me in the face, too, knocking me back down to the floor. She stoops down to my level.
At this point, my face is burning. I touch it and my hand is all sticky with blood. Feeling a bit deflated and alone with my clones gone and the soldiers fighting the horde, I realize I’m going to have to fight her all by myself. “You know. Even if you kill me, these guys won’t let you go. You’ll never get out of here alive. We have a better shot if we fight them together.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. They’ll tear you to shreds. You don’t stand a chance against these zombies. They don’t discriminate. They don’t care who you are. You should know that by now.”
“Don’t you worry your pretty, bloody little head over me,” Brie says, revealing the keychain device from her pocket in her one hand. “I’m good. Zombies can’t see me with this.” She holds it up in the air. “I’m as good as invisible to them.”
With my face still bleeding on the floor, I notice a crowd of zombies standing there, not attacking, just watching us, more like milling about or loitering. One of them even bumps into Brie and keeps on walking aimlessly.
She steps away from me and the zombies, once idle, come rushing towards me. I grab the knife from my back pocket in the hopes of trying to defend myself. As they descend upon me, I move my arm back and forth, doing my best to take them down by stabbing them in the head. Unfortunately, there are too many of them. They crowd me and a couple of them sink their teeth into the fleshy part of my arm. The pain is intense, almost too much to bare. Suddenly, they clear out and I see the Brie with one arm speed toward me.
“I’m done playing with you,” she says, picking me up by my shirt and throwing me against the wall. “Letting the zombies have you is far too easy. Hell, you have so much zombie DNA in you by now, you’re probably one of them, at least on a cellular level. I’ll make sure the only way you leave this compound is in a body bag.”
“How are you this fast and strong?”
“Talk to Malik. He made me better, stronger, more perfect.”
“More genetic stuff? You’re killing me.”
“That’s the point,” she says, kicking me in the chest. “You won’t be able to do anything when you’re dead.”
I gasp for air as I hit the floor again, trying to recuperate quickly. Brie is poised for another attack. She swings her leg out to kick me in the face again, but instead of being her punching bag, I grab her by the ankle and pull her leg so she falls down next to me.
Once she’s on the floor, I jump on top of her and pound her wrist and hand as hard as I can against the ground until she drops the device. The device bounces to the floor and lands about a foot or two away from us. I scurry on all fours to grab it, but she yanks my right leg to try and hold me back from snagging the device. I fall flat as she bolts past me along the floor to retrieve it. She grabs it again, but I’m right behind her. In response, I jump her and use both of my hands to smash the palm of her hand down against the floor, finally releasing her grasp on the device. Using all of the anger boiling inside of me, I grab the device, get to my feet, and quickly move as far away from her as possible.
“No!!!” she shouts. “What are you doing?”
As she gets up to pursue me, I back away from her to try and keep as much distance as possible between us. She looks around, a worried expression appears on her face. Suddenly, the horde of zombies - at least a dozen of them - stops watching and wandering around without purpose. I see their eyes perk up and their noses being drawn to her. A moment later, they swarm her. Each of them pile on top, trying to get a taste. I can see them chomping down on her flesh and bones, making me want to vomit. Her blood is soon plastered red all over their faces and hands. They cover her completely until I can’t see her anymore.
“Ahhhhh!” she screams.
While her scream is loud, it’s quickly silenced. I watch as a pool of her blood begins to seep out from the fray. No matter how many people I see attacked and killed by zombies, it never gets any easier to watch. I turn away from the bloody scene and notice the bite marks on my arm have disappeared.
Suddenly, I hear Malik’s voice over the PA system. “What did you do? What did you do?” Malik repeats.
“I just… She was going to…” I mumble, startled by his booming voice, not knowing where to go to escape it.
“Answer me, damn it!”
“This is your fault. All these zombies and clones. You only have yourself to blame for her death. You’re the reason she’s gone, not me.” I point at one of the cameras. “What? Did you love her or something?”
“You’ve been quite a handful, and I don’t think I can stand you anymore. I see from your face that she managed to do some damage. I guess I’m going to have to finish what she started.”
“That won’t bring her back.”
“No, but it’ll be fun to watch you die. And it’ll give me comfort to know if anyone manages to find you, you’ll be in so many pieces, they’ll have to collect your remains with a wet-dry vac.”
“Vulture…” Dammit. No more earpiece. I run to main lab looking for something, anything to use as a weapon. If I’m not getting out of here, neither is Malik.
“You can run, but you can’t hide, little girl. I have eyes on you no matter where you try to hide,” he bellows.
I hit the button to open the lab’s hydraulic doors, run inside, and look around. Scanning the area, I spot an axe encased in a box attached to the wall with a glass front. Trying to open it without luck, I roll one of the moveable trays over and ram the glass with the metal tray, smashing it. I carefully remove the axe from the box.
“You’re gonna need more than that,” he taunts.
Without saying a word, I exit the lab holding the axe with both hands and feel for the device that makes me invisible to zombies. I’m going for Malik and I don’t want anything to come between us. I head for the cloning lab.
This time the door to the cloning lab is open. I see Malik inside so I enter, ready to fight. I also notice about half of the cloning pods are empty and leaking some sort of fluid, and my feet are sticking to the floor.
“I thought you had forgotten about me,” he jokes, closing the lab door behind me.
“Funny,” I say. “De
activate the clones, Malik. Stop this madness. It’s over.”
“Nah, that’s not the plan. They were designed to be activated, not deactivated.” Malik hits a button on his control panel and a Jane zombie clone appears behind him. At first blush, she looks like me, but this clone is much bigger. Wait. Why am I so scared? I have Brie’s device. I relax momentarily, focusing on Malik, but then I notice the zombie clone heads toward me. I pull the device from my pocket and hold it up.
“That won’t work on this clone. Nothing can stop her.”
And he’s right. She picks up speed and crashes into me, knocking me against the window. Still holding onto the axe, I try to break the window to escape, but the glass isn’t breaking. Either this isn’t glass or I’m getting tired. Trying to catch my second wind, I turn around and see my zombie clone rushing toward me again. I raise the axe above my head, one hand on the handle and the other on the butt. She bangs into me and pushes me up against the glass window. The only thing preventing her from taking a bite out of me is the axe.
“Gahhhhhh!” I shout.
With every last bit of strength, I push her off of me. She falls back, but keeps her balance. In that moment, I use the wall to help me get to my feet, pick the axe back up, and slam it down on her ankle. She falls backward onto the floor growling and shrieking. She tries to get up, but I kick her in the face and then bring the axe down again onto her head, splitting it in two and breaking the head of the axe off its handle.
Breathing heavily, I drop the axe handle and drop to the floor to compose myself. When I look up, I see Malik reaching for something under his lab coat.
As I watch him, seemingly in slow motion, my internal alarm system kicks on. Immediately, I pull out the knife from my back pocket, trying to protect myself from anything that’s about to go down. Seconds later, I catch a glimpse of the small pistol in his hand. He’s going to shoot me? Crap! And I only have a knife!
Looking around, there’s no place to flee. The noise inside drew an audience of zombies surrounding the lab. They’re banging on the windows. Trapped in the lab with Malik, I can smell the scent of my zombie clone’s rotting body rising up. The smell is a horrendous assault on my nose. Trying to ignore the putrid smell, my mind races, and I think about how I’m going to get out of this situation alive.
Malik draws his pistol. I run past him and hop onto one of the metal exam tables to get the high ground. Jumping quickly from table to table, he follows me and his gun is pointing down. This is my chance. With all the strength I can muster, I jump off one of the tables and stab him in the shoulder. I was aiming for his neck. Immediately, I try to withdraw the knife so I can strike him again, but it’s in too deep and I can’t pull it out.
“Ahhhh!” He falters for a moment before speaking. “Is that how you want to play it?” He yanks the knife out of his body and starts walking toward me. As he gets closer, he starts swiping the knife in the air. Afraid he’s going to stab me, I keep retreating from him. That is, until I realize he’s backing me into a corner. No matter which way I go, I’ll be within his grasp.
“You don’t have anywhere to go. And there’s no one here to save you this time. You’re mine. I’m going to enjoy making you suffer.”
Closing in fast, he swipes the knife in the air again. I put up my hands in defense. He swipes again and again. This time he makes contact and cuts into the palms of both of my hands. In shock, I pull them away temporarily out of instinct. Fighting through the pain, I ball my hands up into fists to fight him. As he comes in to slash again, I use the element of surprise and rush forward, making contact with his face. The attack stuns him long enough for me to throw additional punches, sending him to the floor.
I see blood seeping out from between my fingers and the slice wounds underneath them are burning. I open my hands so I can see the extent of the damage. Somehow, just like before on my neck and arms, the slashes in my hands have already started to heal over, leaving only the original blood stains on my skin.
“It’s happening again,” I say. I touch the palm of my hand where the slash marks should be and the skin is smooth.
“You’re welcome.” Malik smirks as he gets back up, rubs his jaw, and brandishes his blade. “Too bad your power will be wasted when I kill you.”
“Kill me?”
“I said I’d get you first. And don’t worry, because of what you did to Brie, I’ll make sure your death is long and painful. Ah! It’ll be my pleasure to hear your screams.”
I touch my face from where Brie kicked me. The pain is gone and the bleeding stopped. “This is unbelievable,” I say to myself, not paying attention to an oncoming Malik.
At the last minute, I see him coming toward me. Trying to sidestep him, I move out of his path, but he still catches me in the arm with the knife. The wound is painful and bleeding, but soon heals over quickly just like last time.
“Wait! If every time you try to hurt me, I heal, what are we doing here?”
“Good point,” he says, throwing the knife to the floor with a clatter. “I guess I don’t have a need for this anymore.”
At the same time, the zombies are still surrounding us outside the lab. They’re pounding even harder on the windows with their fists, and some of them are trying to break through the windows with their heads, turning them into bloody messes. I look back at Malik. He pulls his gun back out and points it at my head. “I have a theory that if I shoot you in the head, you won’t heal, you’ll die. Shall we run an experiment and see if my hypothesis is true?”
“No more experiments!” I shout at him. “No more!” I rush toward him as he points the gun at me. I duck down as I continue my attack, knocking him off balance. I see a flash of light and hear the gun go off, but I don’t feel any pain. As we both fall to the floor, the pistol jumps from his hands and skips along the ground. We scramble to get to our feet to be the first one to retrieve the weapon.
I manage to reach the pistol lying on the floor before him. He’s right behind me. I grab the gun, turn around, aim, and shoot him in the head. Looking stunned, he stares at me with a creepy smile on his face for a second before dropping to the ground.
Stepping back from the fracas and crouching down on my knees, I’m so tired. I’m tired of people dying and people forcing me to protect myself. I take a moment to catch my breath while wiping sweat from my brow. Killing people is morally wrong in my book, but he didn’t give me a choice. He didn’t. He was going to kill me, and I just couldn’t let that happen. At least Malik isn’t going to hurt anyone else anymore.
I go to Malik’s console, and search for a button or something to deactivate my clones. Nothing. Holding my breath, I click the button to open the lab door. Once open, zombies rush in. My first instinct is to fight them, but they’re ignoring me.
Chapter 13
________________________________________
With Brie and Malik gone, I run back to the fallen soldiers. This time, none of them are moving. Damn! And if I can believe the dead soldier that Damar sent them, he’s still nowhere to be found. As I continue searching through their gear, I find a headset on the floor. Maybe it still works? I put it on and try communicating with someone, anyone who can help.
“Hello? Hello? Can anyone hear me? Hello?”
Nothing. No response. I try again.
“Please. If someone is listening, please respond. I need your help,” I cry into the headset. “I need your help.”
There’s some static on the line, but then I hear movement on the other end.
“Who’s there? Hello? Is someone there? If you’re hearing this, please answer me!”
“Hello. Please identify yourself,” the voice says.
The voice that responds sounds familiar. “Damar? Is that you?”
“This is Damar. Please repeat. There’s static interfering on the line. State your name.”
“Jane! It’s Jane! Damar, where are you?”
“Jane! It’s so wonderful to hear your voice. Just in case someone else is l
istening, I’m someplace safe, which is where you should be too. How can I help? What do you need?”
“I’m not sure, but the Vulture… he showed me what’s happening… whole cities being invaded by… me. We have to find the cure hidden in the lab and wipe out the zombie plague in all the places affected by Malik’s plan.”
“Malik’s tracking the attacks and the spread of the infection and the casualties are increasing exponentially. Close to one hundred percent of Shanghai is infected, with other large cities like London, Paris, and Mumbai approaching a seventy five percent infection rate. The cure would help neutralize the infection, and eventually stop it. Did they finish it? Is it ready?”
“Yes and yes. They did.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while. Where is it?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know. It’s somewhere in the facility here. What about North America? What’s happening there?”
“Nothing. Those cities are further away, and they seem to have been spared. With Malik gone, they should be safe.”
“That’s some good news at least, but…”
“But what? What’s wrong?”
“My face. My face is going to be forever associated with death and the destruction of humanity.”
“Come on, Jane. You have to focus if you’re going to help fix this mess, and humanity will be fine. We just need to contain and wipe out the plague now. From what we could tell from listening in on the emergency lines, the militaries around the world have been deployed and are trying to fight the spread of the virus. It’s time for you to get out of there.”
“Tell the Vulture to open up the entire lab database. And, maybe, just maybe, we can find the cure.”
“I can’t,” says the Vulture. “It’s one of those encrypted codes that I’ve been trying to break, but it’s nearly impossible. I’m sorry!”
“Get out of there, Jane. There’s no reason to stay there anymore.”
“No, I can’t leave, not yet, not without the cure. We’ve got to get it to the World Health Organization or somewhere they can manufacture it en masse to save everybody. But in order to do that, we need full access!”