“They’re fine—there isn’t any hemorrhaging or anything.” My mom answered as she stood up from the table and chair where she had been previously sitting.
That was when Hugo’s voice came on over the intercom and he sounded like he had some dire news.
“Chaz—you should come back down here to the interrogation room…we’ve learned some news…”
“Shit—this doesn’t sound good at all.” I stated as I turned and opened the door leaving the infirmary followed by Chloe.
I arrived at the door to the room where they were interrogating the prisoner and I was met by Richard and Billy who were waiting there, we went inside and I noticed that the floor below where the marauder prisoner was hanging was covered with fresh blood and it looked like several layers of the flesh on his lower torso had been cut off and blood was steadily flowing down his body; further examination of the area around him revealed that his feet were now chained down.
“What have you found out?” I asked as I leaned against the nearby wall as Chloe wrapped her arm around my waist.
“This little fucker told us that he was trailing a group of survivors who escaped from one of their viral testing facilities several weeks ago—he told us that he and the others of the team he’s a part of thought that these people had escaped underground somewhere a few miles north of here.” Beau answered as he turned to face me.
“Hmm…this sounds pretty serious…if there are other survivors out there we ought to try and help them—especially if they are against Darkbourne and those marauder assholes.” I answered in deep thought.
“I agree with that but there’s really no way of knowing where these people may be hiding—this asshole here stumbled upon this compound of ours by coincidence only; our main goal right now needs to be focused on developing the cure to the Redeemer Strain.” Hugo stated suddenly.
“Cure…?” The marauder prisoner suddenly spat as he opened his eyes and glanced around at all of us.
I directed my attention to him as it sounded like he was started to laugh—it was a low creepy laugh that sounded maniacal.
“Better to serve Darkbourne in death than to be against him…you fuckers just wait and see…my friends will come for me and when they do you’re all gonna die!” He spat as blood poured out of his mouth.
“Is that so?” I asked as I stepped forward with my hand on my magnum.
“Y-Yes…in a few months there won’t be a single man, woman or child left alive on this planet who will stand against us—the Redeemer Strain will be spread all over the globe and our plan will be complete!” He continued in the same laughing maniacal tone.
“You claim that anyone else out there surviving against this apocalypse that your master brought forth will be turned through some sort of distribution of the Redeemer Strain?” Hugo asked with a worried expression on his face.
“Fuck you—I’ll see you all in hell!” The marauder prisoner answered laughing as he glanced up toward the ceiling of the room.
“No—that’s where you and all of your little friends including Darkbourne are going.” I answered as I swiftly drew my magnum and pointed it at the marauder prisoner’s head.
I pulled the trigger and my gun fired—the powerful bullet blew most of his head off and his body convulsed for a few seconds before becoming perfectly still; blood poured down out of the large hole in the cranial cavity of the dead marauder prisoner’s head and I put my magnum back into the holster at my side and turned back to the others.
“Dispose of this trash—we need to examine those files that we acquired from the Ringgold facility and see if we can’t put some sense into what he was rambling about.” I stated and Chloe wrapped her arms around me with a worried look on her face.
Shortly afterward Beau, Billy and Richard took the corpse out back and they threw it onto the burnt pile of blackened corpses from before and set it afire before returning—we got everyone together inside of the laboratory where Amy was working and we discussed what we had found out.
“If what that marauder said is true then Darkbourne must be concocting something big—far bigger than just turning the world’s population into flesh-eating zombies and other mutations…I hate to say it but we’ve got a real problem on our hands this time.” Billy stated as Kayla clung to him tightly.
“How the hell could Darkbourne possibly spread the Redeemer Strain all over the world though?” Richard asked with a confused look.
“My guess is that he is planning to use a rocket or something—some sort of delivery method that would allow an airborne form of the strain to be introduced into the upper atmosphere…if that were to happen then the fate of this world is sealed…any other survivors out in the open without proper breathing masks or respirators would immediately mutate and become slaves to that motherfucker.” I answered as I glanced around at the others before my attention went to my women at my side.
“Yeah…and there’s no guarantee that we would be safe from it either—yeah, we’re all already carriers of the vaccine form of the Redeemer Strain but that might not protect us from whatever is to come.” Beau stated folding his arms across his chest.
“How is progress on a cure coming along?” I asked as I turned to glance at Amy.
“Slow…but it seems like there’s promise for this project—it’ll take a few more days of steady work to see if this recent angle I’m trying will work.” She answered with a hopeful tone.
“That’s good to hear…we’ve got to stop Darkbourne’ plans one way or another but we have no idea where he could possibly be at this time…” I stated after several seconds of silence had passed.
“I might be able to hack into the computer’s database in the control room—I’ll try and find out if there is any information on a possible location on where Darkbourne and our other friends are hiding.” Hugo stated as he turned and headed toward the door to the lab.
“Alright, let’s settle in and wait—it’s all that we can do at this point.” I answered as I turned to my women.
“I hope that we can figure something out soon—I would like to think that there will be a future for our children…” Jennifer stated in a distant tone as a tear rolled down her face.
I brought her along with Sheila, Chloe and April into my arms and we stood there sharing a private moment as the others aside from Amy and the few others who were helping her with the research left the room; I calmed them down enough to where we were able to return to the room where we had set up our sleeping quarters and the girls put the newborns to sleep and then we went to bed ourselves and cuddled up under the blankets.
Over the next several days we worked to not only learn the location of Darkbourne’ hideout but also to help Amy with the research for the cure to the Redeemer Strain that she was working on and it was around the third day after we had interrogated the marauder and learned of the dire future that I was awaken early in the morning by sounds coming from the sublevels of the compound we were holed up inside of—it sounded like movement and I knew that we couldn’t afford to allow dead-heads, other mutations or even marauder spies to infiltrate our area; I rose out bed waking Jennifer, Sheila, Chloe and April in the process.
“What’s wrong baby?” Jennifer asked with a worried look.
“I’ve been hearing sounds coming from the sublevels of this place—we just got this place cleared out and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let it be overrun.” I answered as I checked the bullets in my magnum before slapping a new ammo clip into my AR-15.
“Don’t go down there alone—I’ll come with you.” Jennifer stated as she got up dressing quickly before grabbing her AK-74 assault rifle from the gun rack nearby.
“I’m coming too—we better alert the others as well.” Sheila stated as she grabbed his weapons and got dressed as well.
Chloe and April stayed behind with our kids as I led the way down the hall to the control room where
we met up with Richard, Morgana, Jaime and Marco; they were looking over surveillance footage that had obviously been recorded on the parameter cameras overnight.
“What’s up you guys?” Richard asked as he glanced up at us as he approached.
“Yeah—is there something wrong?” Morgana asked getting to her feet.
“I’ve been hearing sounds coming from the sublevels—it sounds like there is something or someone down there.” I answered in a worried tone as I glanced at each of their faces.
“The security camera in the sublevel tunnels has been dark…” Jaime answered as she glanced at the monitor nearby.
“Wait—what the fuck was that?” Marco bellowed as he pointed to movement on the screen.
I quickly ran over to the screen and strained my eyes to see what was before me—the image was so dark that it was very difficult to make out what was on the screen but there was clearly something or someone there and it looked like whatever or whoever it was that they were heading toward the stairwell leading up.
“Shit—they’re heading for the south stairwell…that comes out right beside of our room!” I shouted as I gripped my assault rifle.
“Beau, Hugo—we’ve got intruders in the sublevels!” Richard stated over the nearby CB.
I didn’t wait to listen to what they would say, I dashed out of the control room down the hall with Jennifer and Sheila at my side and I grabbed a wooden table turning it over on its side propping my assault rifle on the top of it pointed at the stairwell door that was no more than fifteen feet in front of us; Beau and most of the rest of the Covenant One members came running up behind us and they stood behind us with their weapons pointed at the door as well. Moments later there was a slight banging sound on the other side of the stairwell door and then it slowly opened and we all watched as a figure stepped out—it was a black man dressed in what looked like old street clothes; he had long chocolate brown hair that was wavy at the tips, his arms were covered with tattoo sleeves and he held a .12 gauge sawn-off shotgun in his arms.
“Hold it right there—that’s far enough!” I shouted as I aimed my assault rifle at him.
My voice startled him causing him to jump slightly but he turned slowly holding his left hand in the air until he was facing us.
“Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?” I demanded as I stepped up from behind the overturned table taking a few steps toward the man with my weapons still aimed at him.
“Name’s Clancy Mason…it’s okay…you guys come on out here.” He answered as his attention was momentarily directed toward the doorway he had come through.
We watched in astonishment as eight more people stepped out of the stairwell door and stood before us, five of them were women and the rest men—the other African-American of the group which was one of the females strolled over and wrapped her arms around the man who had identified himself as Clancy Mason and looked upon us with worry.
“You guys don’t look like those damned marauder assholes…who are you?” He asked as he looked each of us over closely.
“I’ll ask the questions here—you stumbled into our outpost after all.” I answered as I glanced at each of their faces with a hard, penetrating stare.
“Fair enough…as I already said, my name is Clancy Mason—this is my girlfriend LaDonna Grimsby…then there’s the gothic girl over there named Erica Ramsey, the gothic guy’s name is Seth McReady…” Clancy introduced as he motioned to the few people closest to him.
“My name is Jake Andrews and this is my friend Kenyia Savage…” One of the other guys stated.
He was a somewhat tall and slender male with medium brown hair that hung in his eyes over a slim face, he was dressed in dark brown and black clothes that were dirty and torn in spots—the female at his side was a fair-skinned young woman with long black hair and blue eyes; she seemed hesitant to make eye contact. The last two women stepped forward and seemed a little on the cocky side—especially the first one who was a slender young woman slightly shorter than Jennifer who had medium brown wavy hair; she was wearing a black dress that was short enough to have been a cocktail dress back in the day, she wore cargo pants underneath it and her eyes were bright and intelligent. The other young woman was what looked like had been a pampered and manicured model years before—she even still had traces of makeup on her face that was smudged by dirt and sweat; she also had wavy brown hair and it seemed like she was a bit of a bitch—especially by the comment about my group looking like ‘squatting bums’ that she made seconds later.
“You’ll have to ignore her—she can be a bitch most of the time.” The young woman beside of her stated as she seemed to be drawn to me, studying me in a way that made me a little nervous.
“This is Olivia Wallace and Lauren Richmond.” Clancy stated as he made a gesture at the two of them.
“I’m Olivia by the way.” The young woman who had taken a liking to staring at me stated with a smile as she raised her hand briefly.
The last man stepped up and nodded at us, it wasn’t hard to tell that he was a Native American—a member of one of the plains tribes as he had long black hair and high cheekbones.
“Thomas Crow…at your service.” He stated in a deep voice.
“That’s all of us—now mind telling us who you people are?” Clancy stated as his group gathered before us.
“My name is Chaz Watkins—these are my friends and family members; we’ve been surviving on the road and traveling the world now ever since the fall of 2000 when all of this shit first happened.” I answered casually as I turned halfway to the others behind me.
We told them the details about everything that we had been through and what we had learned concerning the recent information about Darkbourne and then Clancy’s face got pale as he explained in detail about what he and his friends had been through—I wasn’t surprised all that much when we learned that they had been captives that the marauders had locked up and kept beneath the Ringgold facility that we had destroyed.
“This is going to sound bad but it’s something that we have all accepted and if you’re going to stay with us you’ll have to accept it as well.” I stated after the others had spent a few minutes talking to the newcomers.
“What is it?” Seth asked in an Irish accent.
“We’re all carriers of the Redeemer Strain…” I answered with a dark look.
“I have the feeling that I already know what that is—those dickheads back at that lab we escaped from were planning to inject us with something of the same name.” Clancy answered as he looked away briefly.
“The Redeemer Strain causes certain mutations within the host body and adds a certain type of collective mindset—it robs you of free will among other things.” Amy stated as she stepped up beside of Hugo and the other Covenant One members.
“So…how the hell do you guys resist the mutations if you are carriers as you say?” Olivia asked as she eyed me closely.
“We inoculated ourselves with what we thought was a vaccine for the original strain of the virus that created the zombies and other creatures out there in the world but it turned out that the Anti-Toxin Sample 3 that we made the vaccine from was really the Redeemer Strain.” I explained as I looked from her to the rest of them and then back at her.
I explained what had happened several years before when we had traveled to New York City to the Hudson Pharmaceutical Corporation building and created what we thought at that time was a cure to the plague that Nicolas Bowman had set loose on the world; I explained how we had followed up on that event with the Winterset, Iowa fiasco that had created a large majority of the marauders—I watched their faces closely as I told the details of that event and it seemed like many of them were shocked and possibly angry.
“So it was you guys who created those marauder fucks?” Erica asked as she stormed forward and stood a few feet in front of us.
“Not on
purpose…at that time we still believed that what we had was a cure to the T.H.C.A.I.A Toxin and we had hopes that it would cleanse the undead hordes…we were fools.” I answered with a distant stare as I was lost in thought.
“You couldn’t have known that this would all happen…we all clung to the old world at times years past—some of us so fiercely that it nearly destroyed us.” Jake answered as he leaned against the nearby wall with Kenyia at his side.
“That’s right—pointing fingers now and playing the blame game isn’t gonna help anyone; we’ve got to figure out a way to survive.” Clancy stated as it looked like their council had made Erica’s rage subside as she stepped off to the side.
“Tell us about this vaccine that you guys made…you said that you inoculated yourselves with it—does it prevent the infection if you are bitten or scratched?” LaDonna asked as she stepped up beside of Clancy.
“From what we have been able to collect, yes—both from the T.H.C.A.I.A Toxin as well as the M.I.MT.W.B.C.A Strain…our bodies seem to have developed their own antibodies against the Redeemer Strain that keep it from doing what it was meant to do to us.” I answered folding my left arm over the barrel of my assault rifle.
“Do you think that this vaccine would give us the same immunities?” Clancy asked as an urgent expression came to his face.
“Yes…but it would also infect you with the Redeemer Strain…it’s something that you would have to be sure of and we would have to monitor you closely for several hours after injection to make sure you’re not going to mutate.” Amy answered as she turned and headed back toward the lab as we all followed along with the newcomers.
We arrived in the lab and Amy explained more details about what she had learned as I turned back to Jennifer and Sheila, I remembered that Chloe and April were still back in our room with the newborns and that they were probably getting concerned; I nodded at Hugo and Beau and they took over the situation with explaining to the new people as I turned and led the way back to our room where Chloe and April were happy to see us—they seemed a little concerned when we told them what had taken place since we had left their company.
[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles Page 65