There was another loud rap, and she instinctively put her hand on the door knob, forgetting that it was locked from the outside. At that same instant, there was a click, and the door pushed open. She jumped back and stared at the woman who held a tray of food, and the man in black and khaki who held a passkey and looked like one of the people that had drugged her.
“Food, Miss,” he said.
She hesitated as the woman held the tray out, because of her startling appearance. Her skin was pulled taught, causing her eyebrows to arch abnormally high like she’d been the victim of a bad face lift; she wore heavy makeup on her pale face, but it didn’t fully cover the gray tinge to her flesh or the pronounced blackish veins that covered her cheeks like a network of roots, and the collar of her shirt was pushed up to her chin like it was covering some sort of damage to her neck. The overall look was macabre, like an embalmed corpse dolled up before an open casket viewing.
Mesmerized by the creature’s milky unseeing eyes, Cheryl reached for the tray. Her fingers accidently brushed against the Beast’s fingers, causing her to shudder as she took it, but her waitress didn’t seem to notice. Her arms simply dropped to her sides like useless implements now that they’d performed their assigned task. Cheryl wondered who she had been before she was infected? A ballerina? A librarian? A school teacher or an executive for a corporation? She tried to dislodge the thoughts from her head. What difference did any of that make now? She was as dead as a rock and as malleable as sticks of wood tied together with string, a mindless servant
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said to the man. “When do I get out of here?”
“When they want you to.”
She didn’t like that answer, and she looked past him, wondering if this could be an opportune moment to escape, because the door was open. The man took a menacing step forward, seeming to read her mind. She took a step backwards as he reached for the knob and slammed the door shut.
Cheryl took the tray to the bed and surveyed the meager spread. There was a warm can of soda, a peanut butter jelly sandwich wrapped in wax paper, and a bag of chips with an expiration date six months past. She stared at the food. Had dead hands touched it? Did the Beasts work in the kitchen too? She was so famished; she finally decided she didn’t care. She ate the sandwich in just a few bites and polished off the chips within seconds.
When she finished, she propped the pillows against the headboard and wondered why she was being treated like a prisoner and what was going to happen next. Coming up with no answers, she drifted backwards in time, thinking of Mark and how much she missed him. She remembered the friends she’d come to know after escaping from Fort San Manuel and started to think about her time in Sabre at Divine Sundaes, but she stopped herself at that point. The most recent losses were the most painful. She shed no tears. There was just numbness now, frustration, and more than a little anger. She was tired of being locked up in this room with nothing to do but worry, and as trivial as it was…she hated the stupid outfit they’d put her in. She guessed the baby pink shade was a psychological ploy meant to enhance a sense of helplessness…and it seemed to be working.
After a more hours of such tedious thoughts, she paced between the beds, talking out loud to herself. “Why?” She could feel her heart thumping against her ribs as her emotions approached the boiling point. “I mean why would they bother to—”
There was a brief, rapid knock at the door. The door opened and Marna, the woman who’d headed her unpleasant welcoming committee walked in. “It’s time to go. You’re ride is here.”
Cheryl remained on the bed, considering attacking her again, running for the door, or at least sharing the few of the choice words running through her head, but after a moment, she decided to temporarily reject all three plans of action. It was the fear of not knowing something that held her back. “Where is Aidan?” she demanded.
“He’s…in surgery.”
The hesitated way she said it made it sound like she was lying. Was Marna just trying to tell her what she thought she wanted to hear? And if she was telling the truth, was that good news or bad? If he was being operated on, at least that meant they were looking after him. “Is he going to be okay? When can I see him?”
“If I knew any of that, I’d tell you. Now…put some presentable clothes on.” She held a bag out to her. “Then let’s get going. There’s a van waiting outside for you.”
Stone cold bitch. Cheryl wanted to throttle her just to see if she could get a human emotion out of her. Then again, maybe she wasn’t human. She stared at Marna’s pasty white flesh and saw her pulse throbbing through a blue vein on her neck. She’s alive, Cheryl decided. She’s just cold and dead inside. Was that what O.N.E. had done to her? Had she had love and other feelings before the apocalypse?
Noticing two soldiers standing in the hallway, she decided it would be futile to resist Marna’s orders. She did not want to be drugged again. Wherever she was headed, she wanted to be fully conscious for whatever dangers were ahead. She took the plastic bag and went to the bathroom to change.
When she came out wearing the white t-shirt with the O.N.E. symbol on the front, the soldiers were in the room holding shackles.
She clenched her teeth as she allowed them fasten the handcuffs around her wrists and bind her feet together with the cuffs and chain. With one soldier leading the way in front of her, and the other and Marna behind, she was told to make her way into the hallway. From there, they guided her a few yards down the hall then through several turns until they came to an exit sign in the rear of the building. It wasn’t until that moment that she remembered the scream she’d heard from inside the building when she’d first arrived. Had it been someone screaming because of something that had happened to them while inside the building or when they were taking her away just like this?
She was escorted to a back door and led to a white O.N.E. van where a driver and another man in uniform escorted her to the back caged area. Before they shoved her in, she looked to the left and the right, wondering one last time if there was a chance for escape.
The taller, older man had dark skin and a confidant demeanor. He watched her carefully, looking ready to respond if she made any sort of erratic move. The other, a twenty-something with fiery red hair reminded her of one of the guardsmen that she used to do patrol duty with at Fort San Manuel. He seemed edgy and impatient, and his movements were more uncertain. “You get away from us, and…” He slashed his finger across his throat. “…we’ll be the ones who pay for it. Can’t let that happen.” He fastened her shackles to a steel loop on the wall of the van. “Got to be smart around here…” he said more quietly in her ear, “…if you want to stay alive.”
His last statement sounded more like a friendly warning to her than a threat. And after he slammed the doors shut, and she sat in complete darkness, it made her think about the idea that a lot of people were just like him, following orders to save their own hides. Many survivors had probably been welcoming when O.N.E. came in to clean up the mess and keep them safe from the Eaters. Then, when they realized too late that their saviors wanted to take over and control every aspect of their lives, there was nothing they could do but conform. They sold their souls for safety. Would she have done the same if she’d remained in the city went things bad? She couldn’t say for sure that she wouldn’t have. Now, here she was on the wrong end of their “law”, a criminal for trying to topple the totalitarian regime that had created a vacuum of leadership through mass extermination then stepped right in and filled it with their own agenda.
The van pulled away, causing her to lurch to one side, and the handcuffs to bite into her wrist. She realized that she was in the same position as the Eaters she’d seen tethered to the wall inside one of O.N.E.’s train cars when she and her friends were trying to hitch a ride to Sedona. For the first time, she felt sadness for those once-alive people who’d been carted off like cattle and all the other billions of strangers who were victims of this holocaust whether th
ey were alive, dead, or somewhere in between.
Where was she headed to now? Some concentration camp where formal Resistance members and other isolated non-conformers were rounded up and kept until their execution or worked to death? She moaned out loud, as her anguish seeped through her pores, covering her skin with a fine sheen of sweat.
Where was Aidan? She needed him. She needed to know he was okay.
She slumped against the wall with only one consolation to soothe her frazzled mind—answers would be coming soon to at least some of her questions.
###
The van drove for what seemed like half an hour, never going very fast. It made multiple turns, and a couple stops, before it reached its destination. No longer sweating, she felt a chill now. Her body was frozen, a solid block of ice, even before the sound of the front doors slamming shut and the stomp of the mens’ boots as they headed towards the back. One of them hummed a song she recognized from the band, Imagine Dragons which seemed ironically appropriate but conjured up more doomsday scenarios in her mind. As she quivered in fear, the men argued.
“Will you shut the hell up?”
“If I keep a tune going, it keeps me from thinking too much.”
“I’d prefer you either not think at all or to think quietly to yourself…unless you want me to knock you upside the head.”
The man who had been humming started singing the words louder.
“Smartass! Now, I got a brainworm. It’s in my head too! Thanks a lot.”
The two of them began to sing together, stomping their feet to keep rhythm.
There was a square flash of light as the back doors to the van opened. After being in the dark, it took a couple of seconds for Cheryl to focus her eyes. The men went silent and had startled expressions on their sheepish faces as if they were surprised to see her staring back at them because they had forgotten they were carrying live cargo.
To her surprise, they undid her shackles and helped her out of the van in a courteous manner. She braced herself before looking around. Her eyes panned the buildings around her. Somehow, she’d expected to be led to a tall, staircase up the side of a pyramid, some sacrificial altar above a pit of Eaters.
She didn’t expect this.
They were in downtown Denver on the 16th Street pedestrian mall, and she recognized the building they were parked next to. It was Republic Plaza—the tallest building in the city. She’d never been inside it, but she knew that before the apocalypse, it had housed offices, shops, and restaurants. With just 56 floors and boxy architecture, it wasn’t all that impressive by skyscraper standards, but the building looked ominous now. Her head was dizzy as she looked up and saw the new blood red neon sign near its peak featuring a massive ‘X’. She knew what that letter stood for even before squinting to make out the other letters.
XCGEN.
“Why?” she asked, breathless as the oxygen seemed to have left her lungs. “Why are we here?”
The red-headed soldier took her arm, gently at first, then more firmly when she didn’t immediately move towards the building.
“Why?” she cried more loudly as dozens of thoughts came rushing at her simultaneously: Mark’s experience in Afghanistan with the dogs who’d that had gotten sick and attacked the villagers who then in turn became infected and attacked the soldiers, his persistent research that eventually led him to a cookie trail that ended with XCGEN’s laboratory animals, all the billions of people that had died because of their development of the fatal virus that caused reanimation and an insatiable hunger for flesh, and then the more personal losses—her family, her friends.
It all began here…with this corporation.
Her head began to float then her knees wobbled. They had to grab her from both sides to keep her from crashing to the pavement.
“Ma’am…Ma’am? You all right?”
She looked into the soft brown eyes hovering over her. They were full of genuine concern, empathy. I bet you lost your mama, your sister, your best friend. Now, you’re one of them. No choice, hunh? Do what they say or else…
They waited a moment, cradling her until she recovered her stability and was able to walk. Summoning a modicum of resolve, she walked through the doors on her own two feet, but no amount of that mental glue could have prepared her for what she saw next.
Even if this was XCGen’s building, it was obvious that One New Earth was at the reigns. The lobby was three stories high, as spacious as a cathedral. The marble floor gleamed like it had been spit-shined, and maybe it had. Beasts lined the walls, as silent and imposing as Egyptian statues in a museum they stood like sentinels, ready to receive whatever command came through the black EM boxes affixed to their heads. They were all large, male specimens wearing black suits and dark sunglasses and might have looked normal except for some obvious signs of decay: a glint of white cheekbone, a carpal wrist bone, or a pale patch of scalp peeking out here and there. On the surface, the attempt to clean them up and give them the appearance of authority seemed ludicrous. But, she couldn’t shake the feeling of fear she being in the midst of them. Knowing who was at the helm of their controls made them more frightening than a pack of wild Eaters who only had one directive. If someone in the security monitoring office detected a threat, she was sure that the doors would lock, and the Beasts would be activated, circling their prey in an inescapable ring. Marring the otherwise perfect marble tiles in front of the security checkpoint, there was a dark stain in the cracks between the tiles. It was easy to imagine that it was blood from someone who had unsuccessfully tried to escape from the building. She hoped he’d taken a bullet before the Beasts were set on him.
Her escorts had apparently shaken their brain worms. Their demeanor became reserved and professional as they complied with what seemed to be standard protocol for admitting guests.
“Checking in,” the older soldier said.
The stout guard at the desk motioned for them to place their fingers on a small scanner. After the green light lit up for both of them, they were instructed to look into a screen for a retinal scan.
“Who’s your guest?”
“Cheryl Malone.”
“Is she expected?”
“Yes.”
The guard fingered the keyboard. Without looking up he told her to put her index finger on the scanner. She complied as she wondered how they would have her fingerprint. Then, she remembered that it had been captured back in Sedona when she had briefly worked as a Beast trainer as her cover for the Resistance.
Her finger was clammy, and she had to wipe it on her shirt and try again three times before the green light came on. When she was instructed to look in the retinal scanner, she wondered if her eyeballs were sweating too because it felt like her entire body was oozing cold sweat and adrenaline.
There was a third hoop to go through before they were in. After taking the soldiers’ guns, the armed guards instructed them to go through a full body scanner. One by one, they went through, placing their feet on the marks and raising their arms in the air.
After they all passed through it, her red-headed escort turned around and called back to the first guard. “Where do we go?”
“Top floor.”
The soldiers exchanged a glance. They hesitated before motioning for her to follow them towards a row of elevators.
“What’s on the top floor?” she asked as they waited for a car to arrive.
“Never been up there,” the redhead said.
“You know what’s up there,” the other replied.
“You have an appointment with central command, and you have no idea why?”
She had some idea. She had a horrible, stomach-churning idea.
In the elevator, the men were silent. That just made her more nervous. Talk. Talk about anything…
“Does the whole city have power?”
“No. A lot of the ‘burbs are still out.”
“Are there a lot of survivors?”
Neither of them answered.
Her throat
tightened, and her voice came out dry and crackly. “This is one of their labs isn’t it? XCGen?”
They looked down at their dusty boots, counting the flecks in the tile until one said, “We don’t know much about what goes on here. We’re just the delivery service.”
“What are they going to do to me?” she pleaded. “Don’t let me go in there cold. Tell me something!”
For a fraction of a second, the redhead’s blue eyes glanced upwards. She saw the camera above them, and assumed there was a voice recorder too. They wouldn’t talk. They were just here to deliver their cargo, nothing more. Then, they’d leave the building, go back to humming their song of doom and walking in straight lines, so they get their pay at the end of the week and not have to worry about losing their false sense of security.
It was a long ride up to floor 56.
When the door opened, they all stood still, facing a door across from the elevator. It wasn’t marked with a name plate or a number, and there was no window or peephole. It was just a solid oak door facing her like a portal to some unknown world.
“Good luck,” the redhead said, his face flushing as pink as the jumpsuit she’d had on earlier.
“You’re not going in with me?”
“No,” the older man replied. “You get off here.”
She poked her head out and looked left and right. It was a solid corridor with no other doors or windows. She paused for a long moment and stepped out just before she was sure she would have been pushed. When she looked back, the elevator doors were already closing, and she caught one last glimpse of the soldiers’ blank faces before they sealed shut.
After noticing another camera dome above her head, she looked down the long corridor again. There was no alternative to the door in front of her, not even an air vent as a potential escape hatch. She turned around, wondering if she could take another elevator back down, but there was only one set of doors, the ones she’d just stepped through. Apparently, only this elevator went to the top floor, and it didn’t have a down button. There was a key hole where the down button should have been.
Eaters: Resurrection Page 22