by Perrin Briar
He turned to knock on Kate’s door, but his hand hesitated, freezing an inch from knocking. No. He wouldn’t knock. To knock meant he needed help – from Daniel. He didn’t need his help. He didn’t need to look afraid of a bump in the night like a child. He would handle this himself.
He turned and proceeded down the corridor toward the origin of the low groan. It was muffled by a wall, coming from the bedroom before him, on the left hand side. Lindsey’s room. The door was ajar. The lock lay on the floor, discarded. Safety gone.
Hamish pressed the door open gently, preparing to see what might be on the other side. The blood fell from Hamish’s face. He dreaded going forward and seeing what was behind the door. A dead body. The infected Lindsey. Nothing good could come from entering the room. But he did enter.
And he soon wished he hadn’t.
Z-MINUS: 2 hours 47 minutes
The blood smears on Lindsey’s door should have been a clue, but it was dark and they were difficult to see. The discarded padlock could have provided another clue. It wouldn’t have taken Sherlock Holmes to know a creature such as the one currently inside the room was incapable of unlocking, much less picking, a padlock. Events are always easy to reconcile in hindsight. But when you’re in the moment, when terror confiscates your senses, there’s really no other way for the moment to proceed than the way it did. Otherwise, Hamish wouldn’t have had to do all those terrible things over the next few hours.
Z-MINUS: 2 hours 44 minutes
Hamish gripped the doorknob. He didn’t need to – the door was already standing ajar, but he needed to cling onto something. His heart raced a mile a minute, and a cold sweat broke across his brow. His body was in full flight or fight response. He’d never shied away from danger before, had never turned down an argument when one was before him and needed to be carried out. He was terrified.
The shadows moved, bobbing up and down in a gesture made obscene by light from the waxing moon. The mind makes up images it wants to see, as well as those it doesn’t. That was why so many horror movie directors moved the camera off to one side to rest on something else, something innocuous like a blooming flower or an industrious ant on the windowsill during horrific scenes – because the director knows the viewer’s imagination was a far more potent agent of horror than the images the filmmakers themselves could conjure up.
And so Hamish saw horrendous things in that gentle bobbing movement on the floor. He almost grabbed the door to begin closing it, but morbid curiosity had him by the balls. He couldn’t take his eyes off what was before him. The faint tint of iron seized his nostrils. The mind can only process so much, and Hamish’s was focused entirely on the figure before him, the dark shadow.
The bobbing stopped, seemingly aware it was being watched. The shape turned toward Hamish, cut in profile against the winter window frame. Hamish knew then that it was a person. He feared seeing its face. Lightning flashed. Just a flicker of white. That was all it took. But it was enough. Hamish had seen more than he needed. He began to back out of the room.
He saw in his mind’s eye, as brightly and clearly as if the room were flooded with light, showing him every part of the figure in monstrous detail. The gaunt eyes were hidden by a ridge of shadow from the protruding eyebrows, the bloodshot eyes of the inebriated, the smeared blood around his mouth, at odds with his pale skin, made glowing in the lightning’s obscene harsh flares.
The figure had been couched over another figure. Hamish’s eyes didn’t need to move from the figure’s face to know who it was. Her stockinged legs were enough to identify her.
She lay prostate, a thin blood-caked hand resting ineffectively over her forehead in a failed attempt at self-protection. The man’s face had been buried deep in her abdomen. He still slurped, licking at the entrails dangling from his mouth. He clamped his teeth shut. Lindsey’s intestines flopped to the floor.
The shadowed figure stood over Lindsey almost at his full height, save a few inches where he was stooped over. The figure’s head leaned back, his mouth opening wide with the motion. He let out a groan that vibrated through every particle of air, every inch of the small room. The figure lumbered forward, toward Hamish, who was backing out of the room.
The creature lurched toward him, his arms and legs rigid. His head flopped to one side as he stumbled forward, his weight carrying him. He had to catch himself to keep from falling over. The reeking stench of innards filled Hamish’s nostrils. He snapped awake.
He raised his arms and caught the approaching creature’s outstretched limbs. The man leaned forward and bit, snapping at Hamish’s face. Hamish pushed it forcefully away. The figure stumbled, his head leaning far back, his arms by his side. He somehow found his balance before straightening up to make another pass at him. From that angle, with his chin facing the ceiling, Hamish recognized the man’s features.
“Ian?” Hamish said.
Ian grunted as if he understood. He leaned forward again. Hamish grabbed an incense candleholder and swung it at Ian. It bounced off his head. He rocked back. Hamish swung at him again, but this time only caught the man’s chin, knocking it out of joint. Ian didn’t seem to notice. This caught Hamish off guard. He raised his arms as the figure fell on top of him, pushing him down onto the ground.
Hamish instinctively knew to keep his hands away from the man’s flapping jaws, and though they were weaker now they were dislocated, they bore down on him without pity. Hamish grabbed Ian by the hair and pulled him aside, but the man was heavy. His legs kicked, his hands gripped. It was nigh-on impossible to get him off.
“Get off me!” Hamish shouted. “Get off! Help! Somebody!”
Ian dragged himself up Hamish’s body until they were face to face, his mouth mawing wide open, black and gaping like the depths of hell. In it, Hamish saw his end. He was going to become one of these creatures. His number was up and there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn’t going to be able to fight this creature off, this shadow of Ian. He was doomed.
Thunk!
Ian’s body went limp. His teeth did not pierce Hamish’s skin, and instead he just lay on top of him, motionless.
“Well, you don’t see that every day,” Daniel said.
He pulled Ian aside. Kate helped Hamish up.
“What’s going on?” she said.
“I have no idea,” Hamish said. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Check Ian’s pulse,” Kate said.
Daniel did.
“He’s dead,” he said.
Kate turned a deathly shade of white. Her arms shook and the bin tumbled out of her hands. Hamish pulled Kate and Daniel out of the room, slammed the door, and locked it.
Z-MINUS: 2 hours 39 minutes
“What’s the commotion out there?” Jeff said from behind his locked door. “I heard someone shouting.”
“It’s nothing,” Hamish said. “It’s over now. We just… had a slight problem.”
“What problem?” Carl said, rubbing his swollen groggy eyes as he stepped from his room.
“It’s all over now, nothing to be concerned with,” Daniel said.
Daniel waved for Carl to follow them. Carl frowned, but followed them toward the common room. Kate, still shaken from having beaten Ian over the head and, to her mind, killing him, stood apart from the others, sitting on the breakfast bar stool, staring into space.
Patrick sat at the radio, having fallen asleep at the controls.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“We’re all here now,” Daniel said. “You might as well tell everyone what’s going on.”
“Going on?” Carl said, snapping awake. “Is it Lindsey? Is she all right? Does she have the virus?”
“No,” Hamish said. “She doesn’t. Because… Well, because she’s dead.”
A silence seeped into their souls.
“She’s what?” Carl said.
“She’s dead,” Hamish said.
Patrick moved to push past them into the corridor.
; “Don’t go in there,” Hamish said. “Trust me. You don’t want that to be the last image you have of her.”
Patrick’s expression was crestfallen. He turned to look back down the corridor. He wanted to go see for himself. The haunted hollow-eyed look in Hamish’s face convinced him otherwise. Patrick’s courage waned.
“How did she die?” Daniel said.
“She was attacked by Ian,” Hamish said. “He… He ate her.”
Hamish felt himself hurl inside his mouth. He caught it and swallowed it back down. He grimaced at the taste.
“Ian?” Patrick said. “But that’s not possible. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“And he died,” Daniel said. “We shouldn’t forget that.”
“He either died and came back, or he was never really dead at all,” Hamish said.
“He certainly was dead,” Daniel said. “We all saw it. The defibrillator didn’t work.”
“Right,” Carl said.
“He… wasn’t himself,” Hamish said. “He was alive, and then he wasn’t. He was dead. And now he’s alive again. He’s risen from the dead.”
Another silence. This one disbelieving.
“What the hell are you saying?” Daniel said. “That Ian wasn’t really dead after all?”
“No,” Hamish said. “We saw his dead body. There was no way he could still be alive after that. He had no pulse. He was dead.”
“Then what are we talking about?” Daniel said.
“I know how it sounds,” Hamish said, raising his hands. “His eyes were dead, like he wasn’t even looking at me, like he wasn’t there. It’s hard to explain. It’s easier if I just show you.”
“Show us what?” Carl said.
“That Ian rose from the dead,” Hamish said. “He’s a zombie.”
Z-MINUS: 2 hours 26 minutes
The morgue drawer sat as open and empty as it had when Hamish had first discovered it. The body bag lay empty on the floor. Only Kate wasn’t in the room. She remained at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. She didn’t need anymore surprises.
It took some time before anyone found a voice to speak. Ian had been dead and was now alive. He’d risen from the dead. A walking undead. The wind howled and the sleet clawed at the windows with its nails, providing the backing track to a moment of incredulity.
“He was in Lindsey’s room when I found him,” Hamish said. “He was… eating parts of her.”
They all turned white. A couple dry heaved.
“If this is a joke…” Patrick said.
“It’s not a joke,” Daniel said. “I heard Hamish fighting with someone. When Kate and I found him, we found Ian trying to bite him. Lindsey’s body lay in the corner. It still is.”
“Is Ian dead now?” Carl said.
“He wasn’t dead to begin with,” Hamish said. “Not the way we know it, anyway.”
Patrick shook his head, standing with his hands on his hips, trying to piece the information together. He shook his head again. He was having an argument in his own mind, disbelieving what he was hearing.
“You’re wrong,” he said finally, failing to find the words or the argument he needed to disprove the facts.
“I’m afraid he’s not,” Carl said. “I wish he was. But we all have to admit what we saw earlier. We saw Ian die. He was dead.”
“I have to agree with Patrick,” Daniel said. “There’s no such thing as people rising from the dead. I’m not smart like the rest of you, but even I know that. The doc only thought he was dead.”
“He was dead,” Hamish said. “No doctor could mistake that.”
“There have been stories of doctors getting it wrong,” Patrick said.
“Including the undead eating the living?” Hamish said.
Patrick and Carl shook their heads.
“You can bury your head in the sand, refuse to believe what we all know to be the truth,” Hamish said. “But there he was, dead on the cold morgue drawer. And then the next minute he was trying to kill us. He is undead, and we have to come to terms with that and come up with a plan.”
“Oh man, I can’t believe this is happening,” Patrick said. “I studied hard to get here and now look! I’m staring The Walking Dead right in the face! Meanwhile my brother knocked about with the wrong people and he’s in prison. Sometimes you wonder why you even bothered.”
“We need to think what we’re going to do now,” Hamish said.
“We have to get Lindsey out of there,” Patrick said. “And Ian. Put them in the morgue.”
“Fat lot of good that did last time,” Daniel said.
“There’s not much of Lindsey left,” Hamish said. “Maybe not enough for her to come back. But she’ll definitely be infected now.”
“It shouldn’t matter how much of a person is left!” Daniel said. “No one should be coming back to life after they’re dead!”
“Then what do we do with Ian?” Carl said. “If death doesn’t kill him, what will?”
“Fire,” Hamish said.
“Fire in here while there’s a raging storm outside?” Daniel said. “Sounds like a good plan for suicide to me.”
“Keep Ian locked up,” Carl said. “We’ll deal with him when help comes.”
“But he could escape again,” Hamish said. “We should end him now, while we’ve got the chance.”
“No,” Patrick said. “A man is not responsible for his actions when he’s under such conditions. We must wait and let the courts decide what to do with him.”
“The courts have no jurisdiction here,” Hamish said.
“We’ll seal the door closed,” Carl said. “Make sure he can’t get out.”
“You all want to stay in here with that thing in the next room?” Daniel said. “What if it escapes?”
“He won’t escape,” Patrick said. “It’s locked up tight.”
“I say we destroy it,” Hamish said.
“Destroy it?” Patrick said. “That’s Ian you’re talking about.”
“Whatever that thing is, it’s not Ian,” Hamish said. “I don’t know what it is, but it certainly isn’t him.”
“You’re willing to kill him, to let him die just to satisfy your whims?” Patrick said.
“I’ll even pull the trigger,” Daniel said.
“You’re not pulling the trigger, and you’re not going to kill him,” Carl said, squaring off against Daniel. “He stays in the room.”
“And if he gets out?” Daniel said.
“Then we get him back in again,” Patrick said.
“After he’s savagely mauled someone,” Daniel said. “I don’t think you fully appreciate what we’re up against here.”
“I know we shouldn’t turn to killing people the first chance we get,” Patrick said.
“The second chance, then?” Hamish said. “Or the third? Or until the rest of us are dead and gone?”
“We’re not killing him,” Patrick said. “Not while there’s still a chance of saving him. Now, I’m going to get someone on the other end of the radio, and I’m not moving until I do.”
“I’ll help you,” Carl said.
Patrick and Carl left, heading for the common room. Patrick pulled the microphone over and spoke into it.
“This is Palmer Station, over,” he said. “Come in, over.”
He repeated the phrase over and over, calmly, clearly, and succinctly.
Hamish followed Daniel into the kitchen. Daniel poured himself a cup of coffee. Kate still sat at the breakfast bar. Something was eating her. With all the strange occurrences going on, Hamish supposed she was entitled.
Hamish sidled up to Daniel.
“You mentioned earlier you wanted to pull the trigger and kill Ian,” he said.
“Don’t tell me you’re part of the suicide police too,” Daniel said.
“No,” Hamish said. “I just wondered how you’d do that. There’s a gun here?”
“No,” Daniel said. “It was just a figure of speech.”
“That’s a shame,” Hamish
said.
“Not if one of them got their hands on it,” Daniel said with a nod to Patrick and Carl.
Hamish took a seat beside Kate.
“Would you like some coffee?” he said.
Kate shook her head. It was barely perceptible.
“Is there anything you’d like to talk about?” Hamish said.
Kate shook her head, but there was clearly something on her mind. Out the corner of his eye Hamish could see her eyes were bloodshot. She held a worn tissue in each hand.
“I can come back,” Hamish said.
“No,” Kate said. “I don’t want to be alone.”
With the other guys sat in the communal area, and no one wanting to stay in their rooms, there was no chance of being alone. But Hamish supposed it was possible to be in a room full of people and still feel alone.
“What’s wrong?” Hamish said.
Kate didn’t look at him, but at her hands in her lap.
“I murdered him,” she said.
“Murdered who?” Hamish said.
“Ian,” Kate said, her voice crackling under the pressure of speaking his name.
“If you didn’t, he would have murdered me,” Hamish said. “And believe me, he wouldn’t have felt the same remorse you do.”
“But I still killed someone,” Kate said.
“Technically he was already dead…” Hamish said.
He could see by her downcast expression and the way she looked at her limp hands that she didn’t see it that way.
“I’m sorry,” Hamish said. “I can understand why you feel bad, but you shouldn’t blame yourself. He was already dead. I know if it were me in his situation, you would be doing me a favor. As he’s not here to say it, let me say it now… Thank you.”
Kate smiled.
“Thanks,” she said.
“It’s better to be dead than to be one of those monsters,” Hamish said.
“I’d have to agree with you there,” Kate said. “I promise to do you the same favor if you ever become one of them.”
Hamish laughed.