The Romero Strain

by Alan, TS

  * * *

  We stood before the outer door to the decontamination area. Though the trip through the darkened tunnels had been unnerving, the doctor managed to find his way back to the facility in little more than ninety minutes. Our journey was uneventful, with the one exception.

  The doctor stood silent and trembling next to me. They were all silent and trembling. I could sense their fear and anxiety. David pulled out his pack of Marlboros. I pulled out the spare clip from my left back pocket and exchanged it for the one already loaded in the grip of the pistol.

  “That’s not your last cigarette, is it?” I asked.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You don’t want to smoke that now.”

  “Why? What’s up?”

  “Don’t you remember that film? The guy pulls out his smokes, fires the last one up and throws the crumpled pack on the ground… it was symbolic for the end.”

  “What film was that?”

  “The Birds, I think… I don’t remember. But that’s not important. You don’t want to be a symbolic cliché, do you?”

  David put the cigarette back into the pack and placed the package into the left breast pocket of his blue work shirt.

  Our long silence was chilling, abruptly broken by soft whispers. It was Joe. He was praying. Then Marisol began and David followed.

  I whispered to him, “I thought you were an atheist?”

  “Non-practicing Presbyterian, actually. The atheist thing was just part of the persona.”

  “You better put in a word for me. I’m a non-practicer, too.”

  Though I had embraced the spiritualism and philosophy of Chinese martial arts, I wasn’t a devout Buddhist and I didn’t always practice it. Though I leaned heavily toward Buddhism, I had been raised Protestant. I believed there were many ways to Heaven and each faith system was valid within its own particular culture. However, I blended the views of a variety of different religions and traditional beliefs into my own unique fusion, which suited my particular experiences and circumstance. They called this being syncretistic. I called it being worldly.

  I took out my house keys and handed them to David. “The keys are for my apartment,” I told him. “Here’s a clue: Taxi Driver, East Village, where Travis Smiley first encounters Sport. I’m bequeathing you everything. That is, if I don’t return.”

  I was bestowing all my worldly possessions to a man I barely new, but for what reason? The world was done. What belongings I had were meaningless and inconsequential. But I wasn’t giving away my material worth—what little I had—as an act of misplaced generosity. It was an act of friendship. And he understood.

  “That was the worst goodbye,” David began, but I knew what he was about to say before he had finished his sentence.

  He was still trying to get another one up on me, but I recognized the quote. And I let him know it. “Nice try, but that was Zombieland.”

  I slid the doctor’s security card through the reader. When the tiny LED light on the box illuminated to yellow I entered his code on the keypad, but the door remained closed.

  “Doc, what’s the code?” He didn’t answer. I repeated my question, “Doc, what’s the code?” He remained silent. “If I have to ask again––”

  “I told you I am not going in there. It is suicide.”

  I didn’t ask again. I took my right elbow and inflicted a powerful blow to his forehead above the supraorbital ridge of his left eye. The impact was hard enough to raise a large lump and send him crashing to his knees, but not hard enough to cause unconsciousness.

  “Your obstinacy is only going to cause you further pain,” I warned. “We no longer have the patience or the luxury to play your little games. Now the code!”

  I stunned him when I knocked him to the floor. At first he didn’t know what happened, but then the severe pain of the blunt force trauma registered. He let out a painful cry.

  I raised a fist up and was prepared to strike him again if he wasn’t forthcoming. He was immediately obliging.

  “Zero, one, zero, pound sign… zero, seven, seven, five, two.”

  “Is that all?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he quickly responded, then changed his answer. “No, I mean.” He put his hand to his new wound. There was a slight trickle of blood. “Enter. You have to hit the enter key. Pound sign!”

  There was silence again. I was struck by a thought of brilliance.

  “I got it,” I said aloud. I proceeded to recite a monologue that consisted of killing mothers with their babies, great philosophers, young warriors, revolutionaries, the good, the evil, the intelligent, the beautiful, and the weak. All having been done in the service of His Divine Shadow, never once showing any mercy. “Name that!” I said with confidence.

  PART II

  BENEATH THE CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD

  I. Ground Zero

  I slid the doctor’s security card through the reader. The yellow indicator light lit up. I entered his code and pressed the pound symbol. The green LED light on the electronic pass code box lit up and the door opened. The room ahead was dark. I saw a shadow. We heard an ear-piercing screech before us.

  I pushed Doctor France aside. “No one move,” I told the rest of the group, and quickly ordered Max to stay as I stepped through the entranceway. The door slid closed behind me. I could hear a clacking sound. There was an eerie chattering of teeth. I pulled out my flashlight and held it next to the pistol in my outstretched hand. Scanning the room, I saw her. She was naked; her skin was leathery and slightly wrinkled, nearly like the appearance of Peking duck. There was sensuality about her appearance, but there was also maliciousness.

  The creature wasn’t sure of me. It sniffed me as it drew closer. It knew I was different, not of its own kind, but not of human-kind. I pointed the pistol at her chest as she drew even closer. I began to unconsciously make faint screech vocalizations, as a warning it was too close. I let out a louder screech as I was ready to fire, but it collapsed at my feet.

  I shined my flashlight on it; it was still breathing. She was looking up at me. I could smell a distinct aroma; it was iron, the smell of blood. I traced the flashlight across her body. She had been shot several times, but I wasn’t sure of the severity of her injuries. She reached up to me like she wanted my help. I could sense no malice, just helplessness.

  I knelt down next to her and took her hand. She looked pleadingly at me. She didn’t want to die nor to do me harm. Where was this creature of evil, this harbinger of death the doctor was afraid of? Had it been all lies and half-truths again?

  I had to do something and it couldn’t be done here. I could not let her die; she had been someone before––a soldier, a daughter, perhaps someone’s wife. I helped her to her feet and put her right arm around my left shoulder and neck. I held her up with my left arm wrapped around her, giving her support as we moved through the room toward the opposite door from which I had come. I did not swipe the card through the reader, for the door was ajar, and riddled with bullet holes.

  There were two exit doors leading into the complex. The first was a double steel door that hermetically sealed the inner chamber from the smaller outer vestibule. The other, a secondary exit, was a standard door, fully ajar. It opened inward to the vestibule, which appeared to be a dressing area. I pushed the two sliding doors into their recesses and walked across the small antechamber; I saw an inscription on the second door as I exited into the hallway: File Storage, Room 6, Authorized Personnel Only.

  We had emerged in the south passage between the hallway that led along the command center and the one that intersected the living quarters. As I entered the corridor in front of us, I saw bodies throughout the barely lit hallway to my right. I looked in the opposite direction, more bodies. I looked ahead, more bodies. I tried to count them as I carried her down the hallway, toward the place the doctor said the medical center was located.

  The facility was divided into three sections. The west section was the command center, which held the communications
room, the monitoring station, and security functions of the complex. Also in this section were the offices for the base commander, his second in charge, a conference room, the weapons’ depository, and in the southwest corner a target range utilized by base security.

  The center section was the housing area, the mess hall and storage areas. The housing was comprised of two sections with a hallway running south to north. The area contained separate quarters for the officers and a general bunk area for the enlisted personnel. There were shared quarters for the research personal, with exception of three single rooms, which were reserved for the top research scientists; France was one of them.

  The third and final section was the research facility. It incorporated several labs and cells, where the test subjects were held. The base medical facilities were located there, along with the living quarters on the north end, next to the kitchen and mess hall.

  The entire complex was rectangular in shape and approximately eight thousand square feet. Hallways ran on the north and south sides traveling east and west. There were three corridors that ran south to north from my position, two of which separated the underground structure into its thirds; the third passage was the one that divided the center of the complex and gave the living quarters their configuration. There was one final corridor that ran east to west through the center of the middle section. All passageways intersected one another and all had hermetically sealable doors.

  I emerged on the south side. To the north was the main entrance to the complex, offset to the west, closer to the command center. The doctor had given inaccurate directions in his description of where things were and how the corridors flowed and intersected. I was happy to find directional floor plans mounted on the walls of the intersections stating: You Are Here.

  As I walked down the hallway, I could see that some of the complex was well lit, but emergency lighting illuminated other parts. Luckily the infirmary’s lighting was fully functional. I placed the female creature on the examination table. She was caked with dried blood and several other unknown substances over most of her body, which made diagnosing her weakened condition difficult. She needed to be cleaned off in order for me to properly examine her wounds, but the filth that caked her was substantial and would need a quicker and more efficient cleaning than a sponge bath, and the scrub sink wasn’t going to fulfill the need. Time was also of the essence.

  As she laid there looking up at me, I bent over her and stroked her forehead.

  “I have to leave you for a moment,” I gently whispered, gazing into her sad eyes. “But I’ll be back. I’m going to help you.” I assured her, as I took off my backpack and set it on the floor.

  She understood, though I wasn’t sure if it was my tone or my actual words.

  I darted out, heading toward the living area. As I approached the hallway where the soldiers and research scientists were quartered, I could see delineation between enlisted man, officer and scientist. Officers appeared to be on the left side of the hallway in private rooms, while a bunkhouse style room served as living quarters for the enlisted, and beyond was where the scientists lived. After trying two doors on the left, I found the third room unlocked. I looked in but could see no one as I stood in the low-lit passageway peering into the room.

  I scoured the right entrance wall for a light switch. Finding it, I turned the center room light on. The room was small but not sparse. It was comfortable and homey, in a military sort of way, but most importantly it had a private shower. I entered the bathroom and turned the shower on. It was only a matter of seconds until I felt the warmth from the falling cascade on my hand. I deftly adjusted the water temperature.

  Now this was certainly not the way I’d clean an injured person with an open wound. First I would irrigate the wounds with saline prior to any examination. But the extent of her filth and the urgency of getting her wounds immediate attention called for a more unconventional approach.

  I took her in my arms, carried her to the shower, and placed her under the warm, soft flow. She seemed comforted by it, though I could tell that the water was also painful to her injuries.

  I emptied my pockets and removed the pistol from my waistband and slid them across the floor away from her. I retrieved a clean washcloth from a small cupboard and stepped into the shower with her. I gently wiped away the grime and dried blood that covered her body to reveal her true features. The doctor had lied again. Her derma had not transformed her body into one complete leathery grey covering. There was an area remaining that still was her human skin, and though the skin’s pigmentation had changed slightly to a light grey, it was still soft and supple. It started below her larynx ran down along the front of her shoulders, around her breasts, down the edge of the rib cage, into the pubic area and partially into the crease of her inner thighs… essentially her reproductive areas.

  Her brows had receded and her eyes had grown larger, but her neck had not elongated as much as I was expecting, having heard the doctor’s terrifying description. She indeed was animalistic, but still retained many of her female, human attributes. Her breasts were full, her waist thin, her buttocks round. She was tall, lean, muscular, and essentially still a woman. A beautiful one at that.

  As I gently washed the dirt and dried blood from along her right arm, I noticed something that I didn’t see before. Upon her wrist was a plastic hospital identification band. I lifted up her hand, and though the ink on the bracelet had begun to run and smear, her name, rank, service number and age were still legible.

  II. Luci in the Sky with Diamonds

  Her name was Luci Leinster. She had been born and raised in Rochester, New York. Her parents had been Robert and Marie Leinster. Her father was from Dublin, Ireland. Her mother was American-born. They had met at the Rochester Institute of Technology and married shortly after Marie’s graduation, which had been one year prior to his. Luci’s parents died in a car accident on the New York State Thruway after a trip to New York City. The file did not contain many more details on her parents with the exception that Luci had not been with her parents at the time of their deaths.

  Luci was twenty-six-years-old and a sergeant in the United States Army 105th Military Police Company (New York Army National Guard). She joined at age eighteen after graduating high school and was deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom as part of the advance party of the 504th Military Police Battalion, which arrived in Kuwait in March 2003. Her battalion was assigned to the 220th Military Police Brigade, a U.S. Army Reserve unit from Maryland, as part of the 377th Theater Support Command.

  Her service record also contained her photo and vital stats, which were exemplary; she had been awarded a Bronze Star for Valor, which was not what the doctor had told us. Luci had not been court-martialed, nor had disciplinary action been taken against her.

  Aside from her service record, there were two other forms in the folder. The first was a consent form regarding the medical research study; she was volunteering to participate. The other was a questionnaire, apparently filled out in her handwriting.

  The questionnaire was two pages in length. It asked questions of a personal nature, such as her fondest memory, her worst fear, what frightened her, and what made her happy. It sounded like a physiological profile disguised as character information. The questions that attracted my attention the most were in regard to music and film. She disliked horror and most sci-fi films, but enjoyed action flicks and romantic comedies. Some of her favorite actors were Adam Sandler, Hugh Grant and Christian Bale. Her music choice was mainly of the pop rock kind, mainly British artists, with one standing out significantly: Elton John. Asterisks had been placed on the beginning and ending of the name.

  I put the file folder back into the cardboard box, which also contained her personal items. Inside were her dog tags, an iPod, and her uniform and personal identification. I put the top on the box and sat for a moment staring at it.

  III. For Duty and Humanity!

  After I thoroughly showered her and gently dried her, I wrappe
d her in another towel and took her back to the infirmary. Mending was best done in a room suited for the job, though I’m sure the living quarters from which we had come were more comfortable and relaxing to her.

  The medical room was equipped with all the proper instruments needed for outpatient surgery, but not for major surgery. She had a bullet lodged shallowly in her left pectoral muscle just under the coracoid process of the scapula. She had another lodged in the hamstring muscle of her left leg and had been grazed on her right quadrolumborum muscle. The superficial wound appeared to be healing. Nonetheless, I would have to operate in order to remove the bullets from her other wounds. The two slugs appeared to be easy to remove, however, I was not about to dig and probe her without the use of conduction anesthesia.

  The medicine cabinet was locked. I could clearly see a myriad of vials through the glass windows on the doors. Somewhere amongst them I hoped to find a local, injectable anesthesia.

  I took the pistol out of my pants, turned it around, and used the butt end to crash through the glass. The sound of the shattering window startled her. Luci sat up. Again, I had to comfort and reassure her, telling her everything was going to be all right.

  I returned to the broken cabinet and cleared away the jagged pieces of debris from its frame. I rummaged through the cabinet looking for an appropriate numbing agent. Not being a physician, I was not familiar with the contents held within the cupboard, nor was I trained in their proper use. However, I did recognize two vials: lidocaine hydrochloride, most commonly known as xylocaine, and morphine. Morphine was too extreme for what I needed, and I didn’t know how her system would react to it. In humans, morphine has been known to cause acute respiratory depression, acute pancreatitis, renal failure, and chemical toxicity in low tolerance subjects.

  Xylocaine was a local anesthesia used to block pain in a specific part of the body, allowing the patient to remain fully alert. The area that was anesthetized was usually small and superficial and the injection numbed the area to pain and any other sensations. Lidocaine was typically used for dental work, skin biopsies, or stitching a superficial wound. Though her wounds were neither superficial nor small, it would have to do.