by Joe Hart
“My name is Alex Gregory, and I was a friend of your father’s.”
“What did he have to do with this?”
“We were best friends in college,” Gregory said, his voice gaining some strength, but still he spoke in hushed tones. “He called me two years ago and offered to set up a lab to advance my work. The amount of money he was offering, I couldn’t say no.”
Quinn looked around the room, a burning lump filling his throat.
“So this was just another investment of his, another place to make a profit?”
“No, you misunderstand, Quinn.”
“I think I understand very well. I’m guessing he caught wind of some government program through his connections and saw dollar signs. He commissioned you to undertake the genetics side of it, and somewhere along the line, it went horribly wrong. Am I close?” He’d slowly gained his feet during the tirade, the anger and adrenaline cocktail pumping through his veins like a drug, heightening the indignity, the outrage. Everyone dead, only suffering for those who were left, and why?
“No, you’re not,” Gregory said, beginning to tremble again. “This was not a government project. Genset was privately funded solely by your father.”
“Why would he try to make monsters out of people?” Quinn said. “What purpose would it serve?”
“The abominations that were created in the aftermath were not the goal; they were an outcome of a mistake.” Gregory sagged, his neck slackening so that he stared at the floor, breathing hard.
“If they weren’t what you were trying to create, then what were you doing here?”
Gregory managed to raise his head high enough to look him in the eye.
“Your father was trying to cure you.”
Quinn felt like he’d been kicked by a horse. The air buzzed, and he lost vestibular sense. The ground was the sky and then it reversed, sending him into a dizzying tailspin.
“What?” was all he managed, all he could get himself to say.
“When all of the surgeries for you were ruled out, he came to me. He knew I was trying new gene therapy strategies, —that I was on the forefront of discovery—and asked if there was any way to help with your condition. He wanted a normal life for you so much, Quinn; it was his sole ambition. He built this place, gave us tens of millions for a budget, all for you.”
Quinn lowered himself to the floor as the world continued to whirl around him.
“I don’t understand…why?” he breathed.
“Because he loved you. More than anything or anyone. He was driven beyond any man I’ve ever met.” Gregory paused, glancing around the operating theatre as if he’d heard something. They all listened too, but there was nothing but the hum of the lights and the rain. “We began work on mice, then moved on to primates, slowly verifying what route we needed to take to get to the end goal. It became clear early on that a virus would be necessary for the delivery of the genetic program.”
“A chimeric virus,” Quinn said, recalling the information Holtz had told him.
“Yes. An adenovirus holding a common flu virus gene. We mutated the gene responsible for transmission so it could never become communicable.” Gregory swallowed and shook again as if fighting off another coughing episode. “But something went wrong with our first test in a human.”
“You said you were working with primates. How did you ever get clearance to go ahead with human testing?” Alice asked.
Gregory seemed to focus on her for a moment before sliding his gaze back to Quinn.
“We didn’t. Your father pushed the tests forward. I told him we needed another two years of clinical trials after gaining licenses, but he couldn’t be dissuaded.”
“But what did he hope to achieve with all this? You said so yourself that the surgeries were out of the question. How was this virus supposed to help me?” Quinn asked.
“The chimeric virus—” Gregory said, pointing his free arm at a coolant cell at the furthest end of the row, “—held a protein for dissolving healthy bone tissue and another, that was purely experimental, for rebuilding it, along with a dose of human growth hormone to promote the generation of cells. We were going to concentrate the virus in your facial bones and then make an organic cast replicated from your father’s bone structure. The cast would have been implanted on your skull and the secondary protein would have rebuilt the bones according to the cast.”
Quinn swayed before the man. The rain was calling him. He could walk into it and let it soak his clothing, wash away the swirling shock that cloaked him. He could forget.
“You could’ve stopped him,” Quinn said, tears blurring his vision. “You could’ve prevented all this.”
“You’re right. I could have. But my own aspirations were too great. We went ahead with testing on our first human candidate. His name was Rodney Fairbanks. He was an Iraq War veteran. He’d been involved in drug trials for years, especially concerning post-traumatic stress disorder. We offered him more money than he’d ever received before.
“The initial tests were very promising. Your father was ecstatic when he left that day.”
For a moment, Quinn was lost in the memory of his father dancing with Teresa in their living room, Frank Sinatra’s voice surrounding him completely.
“But something went wrong,” Quinn said.
“Yes,” Gregory replied. “The gene that encodes the contagion protein must have reverted after interacting with Rodney’s cells. It became an actively replicating virus once more. Every person that came into contact with him that day carried it from this building out into the world.”
“My father flew home that day on a public flight,” Quinn said. “He gave it to everyone. He helped spread it across the nation.”
Gregory shuddered and nodded. “It killed nearly everyone it came in contact with. The virus caused an enormously high fever that we were able to control in this laboratory, but worldwide they had no idea what they were dealing with. The abominations were a genetic anomaly I only partially understand. A genetic factor allowed a significant portion of the population to weather the fever, but they lost their humanity in the process. The abnormal growth of the bone, skin, and musculature, was caused by the experimental protein combined with the HGH. It was something we never anticipated.”
Some of his father’s last words floated back to him. Sorry, I’m so sorry. My fault.
Now he understood what he’d meant.
“Goddamn you. Goddamn you both,” Quinn said.
“I’m sure that He has,” Gregory said, looking up. His eyes darted around and his jaw clenched, the muscles of his face bulging beneath the pallor. “He’ll be awake soon, and they’ll return before long. You don’t have much time.”
“Who will? Who will be awake soon?” Alice asked.
“Rodney. He sleeps deeply part of the day, but he feeds the rest of it. I was trying to save him when he began to change and I…I couldn’t escape.” Gregory lowered his voice further. “I’ve tried not to eat what they bring, but he hurts me. He’s tied into my nervous system, and oh God, he hurts me.” Gregory gestured weakly around them, and a prickling sensation crawled up Quinn’s back like a many-legged insect. He let his eyes slide over the growth of bone flowing everywhere in the building, its reaching points crawling down the hallways, seeking ever outward.
Quinn began backing away.
“Please, you have to kill me, please,” Gregory begged.
“Who is he controlling?” Quinn asked.
“Them. All of the abominations that can smell the pheromones he produces. They communicate with the others through scent and tell them his wishes.”
“What does he tell them?” Quinn said, fear running him through like a lance.
“Come to me, come to me, come to me,” Gregory whispered. “They hunt and bring him food, and I have to eat it—you don’t know what I’ve had to eat.” The doctor began to sob and he suddenly convulsed as if hooked to ten thousand volts. His head snapped back, eyes rolling up in his skull while his m
outh gaped open and a creaking moan slipped from him. It was a sound of distilled pain, the cry of the damned.
“Quinn, we have to go,” Alice said, grabbing his arm. She was looking down now, down at the tracks on the floor that led to the center of the room. So many tracks.
“Kiiiilll mmmeeeeeeee,” Gregory hissed, eyes jittering in their sockets, his arm outstretched and shaking.
Quinn brought up the handgun and aimed at the man’s forehead. The sights wavered as the doctor’s jaw clenched so tight they could hear his teeth cracking in his mouth. Quinn squeezed the trigger but then released it and moved across the operating room to the far wall.
“What are you doing?” Alice said.
“I have to be sure,” he said, opening the last refrigerated cell on the counter. Inside were four vials of clear liquid. He grabbed the first and pulled it out, ripping the drawer in front of him open. Inside were all manner of sterile instruments in plastic wrappers. He rifled through them, a clock ticking down in his mind. Gregory screamed behind him. The syringes were at the very back of the drawer, and he drew one out, tearing the package with his teeth. He fumbled the plastic cap off the needle and plunged it into the rubber stopper at the end of the vial. He retracted the plunger, filling the syringe, and threw the vial across the room.
Somewhere far away, a stilt roared.
Quinn jammed the needle into Gregory’s neck and depressed the liquid.
His eyes bulged, and all of his wind rushed out, sliding from between his broken teeth. A small amount of blood dribbled down his chin, and he seized again, muscles becoming bands of iron before slackening.
“Quinn!” Alice yelled as she pulled Ty out of the room and headed toward the door they’d entered through. He began to follow and looked back when he reached the divider between the operating room and the lab.
Gregory was slumping forward, further than he should’ve been able, and Quinn saw that the bone around him was softening where it met his clothes. The doctor raised his head, eyes clear now locking onto Quinn’s, the pain in them washed away.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Quinn turned and ran.
Alice, Ty, and Denver were waiting at the locked door. He drew out Roman’s card and was about to slide it through the reader when another croak echoed into the lab. Quinn turned, squinting down the passage that led out the back of the room. There was a small amount of light filtering in at the rear wall.
“Wait a second,” he said and sprinted through the lab and down the hall. It turned a corner at a door marked ‘roof access’ before opening up to the field outside the end of the building. There had been a fire exit door there once, but it had been torn away and lay scratched and bent on the grass. The rain continued to fall in an unending drizzle.
Through the storm, he saw the first of them on the horizon.
In a span of seconds, there were dozens more. Then hundreds.
They ran toward the building with a single purpose. He could feel their calls in his bones.
Quinn bolted back the way he’d come, sliding on the slick floor as he raced toward the lab door.
“We have to go, right now,” he said, slicing the card through the reader. They pushed past the door and ran down the hallway pausing again before bursting into the lobby. Quinn glanced out through the tall windows lining the front of the building and slid to a stop, grasping Alice and Ty as he did.
Two stilts were striding toward the truck. They were too close; they’d never make it.
“Damn it,” Alice said, her hair whipping as she looked around the building. Ty’s hand trembled in his own and Denver whined and paced before them.
“The roof. If we can get on the roof, maybe we can distract them long enough to jump onto the awning and then down to the truck,” Quinn said.
“No, if we go outside they’ll kill us,” Alice said.
“If we stay in here, we’re trapped. They won’t leave until they’ve dug us out. Those doors aren’t going to hold them. There’s hundreds of them out there,” Quinn said, gripping her arm hard. She searched his face and looked out at the stilts near the truck. They picked at it with long fingers, and it rocked on its springs.
“Okay,” she said.
They retraced their steps, the air humming with deep vibrations. When they arrived at the lab, things were dropping from the ceiling around them, and it was a split second before Quinn realized it was Rodney collapsing from where he’d grown. They raced down the rear hall and stopped at the door leading to the roof. Quinn yanked on the door without looking outside, but Alice must have done so since her grasp on his arm tightened.
“Quinn…”
The door was locked.
“Quinn…” More urgency in her voice.
“Stand back,” he said, shoving the pistol against the gap between the door and its frame near the handle.
He fired.
The gunshot was deafening, but when he tugged on the doorknob, the door swung free toward them. He shoved them into the dark stairway, a last look at the pale mass of lurching flesh, closer now, so much closer.
He lunged through the door, slamming it behind him. There was no way to re-lock it so he ran, ripping up the stairs two at a time. At the top landing, Alice had unlocked the outside door and already spilled onto the roof. As he made the landing, a fire extinguisher caught his attention on the wall. He tore it free of its mooring and sprinted onto the roof.
The roof was covered with rock and felt spongy beneath his feet. He neared the waist-high edge and looked over.
The field behind the building was filled with stilts. They poured like a tidal wave across the earth, arms swinging, heads tilted up, mouths open and belching roars.
“Is the front clear?” he yelled over his shoulder.
“There’s a few around the truck!” Alice called back.
“Get down! Don’t let them see you!”
He tossed the fire extinguisher over the side as the first stilts neared the building. He took aim, breathing, locking the sights on the red steel canister. The sights shook. Don’t let the fear win.
He squeezed the trigger.
The extinguisher jumped and spewed a stream of thick, white smoke into the air. The stilts nearby staggered away from it, the rest slowing and hanging back as the cylinder arced out even more of its contents. Quinn dashed around the side of the building banging the pistol on the concrete lip as he neared its front. The stilts surrounding the truck looked up at him, glaring through the short distance that separated them.
“This way you ugly fuckers!” Quinn yelled and ran back the way he’d come. He only had to wait a moment to know that they’d taken the bait. They came into view, their eyes finding him as he pelted to the rear of the building. “Jump when it’s safe!” he yelled, but didn’t look back to see if Alice had heard him. The fire extinguisher was fizzling its last, and the herd approached it, coming closer like an army of thin apes. One of them reached out and batted the canister against the building. When it merely rolled a few inches into the grass and fell still, they flooded through the open doorway while others reached up, trying to grasp the edge of the roof.
He chanced a look over his shoulder just in time to see Alice lock eyes with him as she climbed onto the roof’s lip. Their gaze solidified into something almost tangible and then broke as she jumped.
Two giant hands latched onto the roof and pulled, a snarling face appearing behind them. Quinn shot the stilt through the head, bringing down four more before turning and running as fast as he could toward the front of the building. He vaulted the wall, hoping that he’d estimated correctly, and fell over the side.
The awning was there, slamming beneath his feet. He nearly lost his grip on the gun but realigned himself with the truck before leaping toward it. Denver was lying on his side in the truck’s bed. Quinn dropped like a stone beside him, his feet hitting the back of the truck with an impact that buckled his legs and rattled his brain. His knees impacted the steel bed and he cried out, but
his voice was lost in the revving engine and the peel of rubber on the wet asphalt.
The truck rocketed forward as the first stilt rounded the building. It swiped a hand out and caught hold of the tailgate. Quinn rolled to his side, as the monster began to climb into the truck, and fired, the bullet tearing into the stilt’s chest. It barked in agony, sending spittle onto Quinn’s shirt before losing its grip and sliding away to the road. Quinn sat up in time to see the entire herd, their numbers past the thousands, pursuing them on spindly legs. Alice accelerated, and their forms began to shrink.
Quinn sagged against the steel and slumped lower, coming even with Denver’s snout. The Shepherd snuffled wetly against his ear.
“You’re a good boy, Denver, good boy.” He petted the dog’s thick fur and noticed the ugly angle of his left hind leg. “Shit,” Quinn said, sitting up to examine the injury. He placed his hand on the leg, and Denver whined with pain, drool lining his dark lips. “It’s okay, boy; it’s okay. We’ll get you better; we’re safe now.”
He scooted forward until he could peer into the cab of the truck. Alice rolled down the left rear window, and he stood up, legs throbbing, rain stinging like wasps.
“You guys okay?” he called.
“We’re fine. Ty scraped up his knees and elbows.”
“I’m okay!” Ty called. “Denver’s hurt. I heard him yelp when he landed.”
“He’s going to be fine,” Quinn said.
“Are you alright?” Alice asked.
“I’m okay. You remember how to get back to the marina?”
“I’ve heard of a backseat driver, but you’re not even in the cab.”
He grinned and sat down.
A sallow arm flew inches over his head and blasted through the back window.
Everything was movement and sound.
The truck swerved. Ty screamed. Alice yelled something, and Denver growled as he launched himself up onto his feet.
The tallest stilt Quinn had ever seen ran behind the truck, its height soaring over thirty feet. Its limbs were like white ropes, bending and flexing as it kept pace with the vehicle. Quinn raised the gun and fired, the shot going wide over the monster’s shoulder. He pulled the trigger again.