Cultwick: The Wretched Dead

by J. Stone

  After a few moments, each of the pets stopped moving entirely. The two remaining corpsmen that Gemma had kissed appeared to fall out of her control. Slowly, they stood and shook off the effects of the infection. Those that had been killed in the conversion process stood as well, but became feral and acted outside Fiona or Gemma’s control. Silas quickly dispatched the last three feral pets and moved toward Gemma.

  “Kill her,” Crowley instructed him.

  Angry for being separated from the pets she had acquired, Gemma stood and picked up a stool, hurling it at the corpsman. He raised his arms up, as though he were a pugilist, and the wooden stool shattered as it landed on his forearms. Silas lunged toward Gemma, knocking her to the ground and forcing her to spit up blood on the laboratory floor.

  It was then that Fiona returned to the room, but she was too late to stop anything from happening. Gemma faced her, kneeling at Silas feet. She appeared too weak to react to the lumbering monstrosity of the man behind her, however, and she stared on at Fiona. Silas laid one hand on Gemma’s shoulder and with the other took hold of her by her hair. Glaring at Fiona, Silas tore Gemma’s head from her body and held it over his head, allowing the blood to drip over his face and into his mouth.

  “You’re no fun!” Fiona shouted.

  Seeing one of her sisters, decapitated right in front of her had taken the fight out of Fiona. Rather than face Silas and get her revenge, she decided to listen to the advice Simon had given her. She fled from the center with her intent to go to the Anointed Temple.

  Chapter 21. Germ and the Sample

  “How did you know this was here, ma’am?” Germ asked Olivia.

  “You really gotta stop with the ma’am stuff,” she replied. “Olivia, Liv, Olive, anything else will do. And I may know the contractor that was hired to design this annex.”

  “Apologies, ma’am, er...” he said, catching his mistake too late. “This might be hard for me.”

  The smuggler sighed and pushed in a specific set of loose bricks in the wall at the back of the Center for Empirical Research, causing a chunk of it to slide backward further into the building and then shifted itself to the side. She stepped quickly in and gestured for Germ to follow her. After they were both safely inside, Olivia pulled down on a lever, and the wall closed back on itself.

  A single flickering bulb hanging from the ceiling of the hall lit the dim corridor. It was dirty, musty and seemed to be rarely traveled. The walls were largely absent and relied on the backside of other rooms to form the tunnel.

  “Was this while you were a pirate or after you became a smuggler?” he asked.

  “After,” she answered, guiding him through a series of corridors. “Councilor Crowley had this section of the C.E.R. built a few years back to house his own special experiments. The contractor wanted me to smuggle in some regulated goods, so I had him build this secret passage for me as payment. Whenever I need a backdoor into the C.E.R., I have one. One of the many throughout the city.”

  “What other backdoors do you have?” he asked.

  “When all this settles down, I’ll have to show you around,” she replied.

  Germ smiled, glad to have the prospect of a future beyond struggling against the empire. He refocused his mind on the sample and asked, “How often have you had to come in here?”

  “Fairly often,” she replied. “You can’t even imagine some of the stuff they’ve got going on in here.”

  “So, does that mean you know where the genotoxin is kept?” Germ asked.

  “’Fraid not,” she answered. “But I do know someone who might.”

  “Someone in there is going to tell us?” he inquired. “Why would they do that?”

  “He isn’t exactly here willingly,” Olivia replied.

  “Does that mean he’s an experiment?” Germ asked.

  “That’s right,” she said. “And quite the special one at that.”

  “If he’s an experiment, how would he know where the genotoxin is kept?” he asked.

  “I told you, he’s special,” she cryptically replied. “You’ll just have to see for yourself, but I do warn you, he’s a little… strange.”

  Perplexed, Germ asked, “What do you mean he’s strange?”

  “Just something you’ll have to see,” she said.

  They arrived at a dead end, and Olivia turned back to Germ, holding a finger over her lips. She pulled from a pocket, a slender metal rod and placed it to the wall. Olivia then placed her ear to the other end of the device.

  “Coast is clear,” she said.

  She turned back to the wall, sliding down another lever hanging from the wall. The door shifted backward only slightly, and Olivia pushed it to the side and stepped out into a white, tiled hallway. Germ followed along behind her, and she sealed the wall back again.

  Once the wall was properly aligned again, she started down the hallway and pointed to a particular cell with a young boy inside. “He’s the one,” she said. “Ask him what you need to know, and he’ll answer, just be ready to not completely understand everything he says.” She waited, leaning against the opposite wall with her arms folded in front of her chest.

  Germ nodded and walked to the boy’s cell. “Excuse me, sir?” Germ asked the boy.

  The boy smiled and replied, “Yeah, I may have gotten that backwards. You should probably just give up.”

  Confused, Germ asked, “Give up? I just got here... And what was backwards?”

  “It has a combination lock - seven, four, eight, four,” he explained.

  “What are you talking about?” Germ inquired, feeling like he was getting further from any coherent answer. “What combination? Never mind. My name is Germ, who are you?”

  “The genotoxin you say?” the boy asked. “Yeah, what do you want to know?”

  “I didn't mention it,” Germ replied. “But I don’t suppose you know where it is?”

  “It's sealed over in the north wing,” he answered. “Room 112C.”

  “Now we're getting somewhere,” Germ said with a sense of relief. “What else do you know about the Genotoxin?”

  “Hello, Germ,” the boy said cheerily. “You can call me Simon if you like.”

  “Oh, yes, hello,” Germ said cordially. “But what about the Genotoxin security?”

  “The conversation, of course,” Simon said.

  “Oh... wait…” Germ replied, thinking on how this had started. “You meant we just had that conversation backwards... And you’ve already told me what I need to know...”

  “Yes, how can I help you?” Simon asked.

  Germ walked back to Olivia who had a big smile on her face. “What just happened?” he asked her.

  “Simon there has had some tests done to him,” she replied. “They somehow gave him the ability to see through time and space, but it has tinkered with his perception a bit.”

  “Does he always talk backward like that?” Germ inquired.

  “Not always,” she said. “Sometimes he doesn’t seem to hear at all. Sometimes he answers questions unprompted or unsolicited. Sometimes he seems to be talking to someone who isn’t there. Sometimes he’s quite lucid. It just depends. He was helpful though. We now know where to go and how to get in. Room 112C in the north wing, and we’ll need to enter the combination seven, four, eight, four to get into the safe that has the genotoxin.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Germ replied. “If he’s been so helpful to you though, why haven’t you freed him?”

  “I’ve offered… on more than one occasion,” she said. “But he says it isn’t time for him to leave yet. Come on. Let’s go find this genotoxin.”

  “Wait,” Simon said, placing a hand to his glass prison. “We’re back in real time... I think... Quick! Say something in proper space-time chronology!”

  “Uh... like what?” Germ asked.

  “Ooh! Yeah, that’s good,” Simon replied. “We’re finally sharing a moment here... not in the way two people in love might share a moment... Not that you’re no
t lovely or anything... but rather I’m simply stating that we’re both experiencing the same specious present now.”

  “Right,” Germ said. “That’s... good to know, sir.”

  “You need to be sure to write about this in your journal, Germ,” Simon instructed.

  “My journal?” he repeated. “Why is that?”

  “Because it’s what you do, and it needs to be done,” Simon explained.

  “Very well...” Germ replied, not fully understanding the young boy’s message.

  “Go now!” Simon instructed. “The window is closing.”

  They traveled up a spiral staircase and began to leave through the only door, but Olivia stopped and held the listening device to its surface. When she heard nothing, she turned the handle and pulled it open. The hallway opened up to a larger laboratory setting, but it was devoid of any scientists. There was a window viewing into a room where several scientists were injecting a man whose arm hung in a sling with a series of various syringes, but they moved past quickly, as not to be noticed.

  “Aren't I going to stand out in here?” Germ asked, trying to hide himself under the overhang of his cloak’s hood.

  “Just walk fast and act confident,” Olivia replied. “You’ll blend right in.”

  Olivia led Germ out of the bigger laboratory and into a standard hallway like the one he recalled from his last visit to the Center for Empirical Research. The hallways were full of scientists going about their days, and to Germ’s surprise, he went wholly unnoticed despite being a giant sized, upright walking rat man.

  They did, however, find themselves wandering in circles looking for the north wing and came back to the same hallway several times before deciding they were lost.

  “Perhaps there is a map around here somewhere,” Germ suggested quietly.

  “Mmm,” muttered Olivia. “That might be easiest. See anything?”

  “There’s a security station behind that door,” he replied, attempting to not point at the room. “Surely they would have one in there.”

  As inconspicuously as possible, Olivia placed the receiver to the door and listened for sounds from within. She then turned the handle and slunk inside, gesturing for Germ to follow her. Once inside, Germ quietly closed back the door and inspected the room. A series of screens were mounted onto the wall on one side with a pair of unoccupied chairs at a table beneath them. On the opposite wall, there was an empty coat rack and a large poster of the layout to the Center for Empirical Research.

  Olivia and he scoured the map attempting to find room 112C, and eventually Germ did, pointing a furry finger to the location. He then traced back the path to the security room they occupied.

  "Looks easy enough," he commented.

  "Just have to get there now," Olivia said.

  Germ turned back and caught a peculiar sight on the screens. They were comprised of a series of still frame shots of the cameras posted throughout the center. One of them depicted a scene of carnage, as Fiona entered through the front door, assaulting the staff. Despite the slow rate of image capture, Germ could see the infection quickly spreading from one victim to the next.

  "Not her," Germ said.

  Olivia turned and saw the screen as well, asking, "Do you know her?"

  "That's Fiona," he replied. "That's the one they call the carrier, and now we’ll have to get past her and the infected."

  "As far as distractions go, at least it's effective," she said. "We should be quick and take advantage."

  They left the security room to hear an echoing roar of screams and cries radiating through the hallways. Having an excuse to hurry, they ran through the halls, following the path the map had outlined. Eventually, they made it to the north wing and began passing rooms marked in the early hundreds, signaling they were close to their goal.

  "Here," Germ pointed out, as they passed an intersection.

  Without bothering to check for activity inside, the rat twisted its knob and pushed forward. Inside, they found a series of safes lining the wall that looked more like a morgue than a vault. Each of the safes had their list of contents riveted to the wall above them on an iron plaque. Germ and Olivia spread out in opposite directions in an attempt to find the genotoxin sample quickly. The rat found several horrifying possibilities locked inside the safes, but most of them were empty or simply unmarked.

  "Found it," Germ exclaimed after making it about a quarter of the way down the wall. "What did Simon say the combination was?"

  "Seven four eight four," Olivia repeated.

  Germ pressed the digits in on a number keypad at the center of the safe. A green light lit up at the top of the input, and the door made a series of sounds signaling spinning gears within. The door then popped open slightly, and Germ opened it the rest of the way. Filling the small safe, there sat shelf upon shelf of small vials of a silver-colored liquid that shimmered in the electric light of the room.

  "I guess this is it," he said.

  Olivia grabbed a vial and slid it in her pocket. "We got what we came for," she said. "We need to get out of here before the infected overwhelm the whole place."

  Germ nodded in agreement, and they exited the safe room. They began to head back toward Crowley's annex, but they found themselves staring at a large grouping of the infected piling in and being slaughtered by the man that they had seen receiving injections.

  “Don’t think we’re going back that way,” Olivia said.

  “So, where?” Germ asked. “Do we just run out the front door?”

  Olivia shrugged and replied, “Unless you’ve got a better idea.”

  Germ wracked his brain for a moment and then exhaustively said, “Not really.”

  “Alright,” she said with a nod. “Let’s go.”

  They headed back through the carnage and spattered blood that lined the walls, floors, and even ceilings toward the front entrance. Knowing that Fiona had come through there, neither was eager to retrace her steps, so they kept quiet and moved quickly. Severed limbs and entire bodies were strewn and discarded on the floor. When they reached the entryway, the floor was entirely covered in blood, and Germ nearly slipped trying to make his way to the doors.

  Behind them, one of the bodies crawled toward them, slapping its hand against the bloody floor and making a loud splatting noise. Germ and Olivia both turned and looked on in horror at the nearly dismembered body slowly making its way to them. It attempted to speak, but only a groaning spurt of blood, saliva, and pus came from its mouth. Germ could not help but stare at it, worrying that if something wasn’t done to stop Fiona, that what he saw on the floor would be the fate of the entire city.

  Olivia placed her hand on his shoulder and shook him, saying, “Come on, Germ. We’ve got to get to Rowland, so he can make the cure. Ryn probably doesn’t have much time.”

  “Right,” he said, giving the wretched creature dribbling its guts from its mouth one final glance.

  Chapter 22. Rowland and the Biojunk

  Rowland arrived at his neglected mansion to find the vegetation more overgrown than usual, the windows mostly shattered, the door hanging off its hinges, and a barricade surrounding the entire front of the property. Written in large red letters on a sign hanging from the barricade was the message:

  Restricted as part of an ongoing investigation. No admittance.

  The professor stood some distance away from the house, with his rats in one hand and a bag of supplies in the other, determining what the best method of egress would be. Ms. Petunia, one of his neighbors had always been exceedingly nosy, and he feared she or one of the others might have been watching.

  Eventually, Rowland decided to see if he could make his way around to the back where the neighbors would be unable to see. He snuck between the next-door neighbor’s fence and his wild growth shrubs and into his backyard. From there, he made his way through the briary weeds and onto his back porch.

  Safely away from prying eyes, Rowland decided that it was past time for his dose of biojunk. Placing his ba
g and the rats on the porch, he pulled out the syringe from one of his pockets and pressed the needle to the skin of his forearm, tearing through the flesh and into his bloodstream. He pushed in on the plunger, flooding his system with the effects of his special-made biojunk. His eyes fluttered open and shut, as the substance worked its way through his body, and a wide grin began to cover his face.

  His needs satiated, he twisted the doorknob and pushed, but the door was locked tightly. He looked around needlessly, looking for anyone watching, and then bashed his gauntlet through the window. Once his hand was inside, he slid the lock to one side and pulled his fist back out. Turning the knob again, Rowland was able to make his way through the back porch and into his kitchen.

  There on the counter sat a nine-year-old Erynn with Germ placing a bandage over her scraped knee. Rowland brought his things inside, slowly shut the door behind him, and watched the scene unfold.

  “How did this happen, Madam Clover?” Germ asked her.

  “I think that rug is out to get me, Germy,” she explained with a wrinkled expression across her face.

  A younger version of Rowland appeared from below the kitchen counter, explaining, “The rug is not out--” he stopped and thought for a moment, furrowing his brow. “Which one?” he asked.

  “The one in the downstairs bathroom,” Erynn said.

  “Mmm,” Rowland muttered, disappearing below the counter again.

  “Mmm, what, sir?” Germ asked.

  “I may have done something…” he trailed off.

  “May have done what, sir?” Germ asked again.

  “I wanted to do some testing on fungus,” he explained, rising up again. “I thought perhaps if I injected it with something I would get faster results.”

  Mulling it over for a moment, eventually Germ asked, “Did you make the rug sentient, sir?”

  “Only the fungus,” Rowland answered, shaking his head. “A sentient rug is preposterous. Besides, we have all seen that Ryn is a bit clumsy - those small child legs of hers. Maybe she just tripped.”