Primus Unleashed

by Amber Wyatt

  Gina reloaded the magazine and looked back up, her eyes flickering involuntarily over towards Dwayne. She looked away quickly, annoyed with herself. Dwayne’s face remained impassive, but inside he smiled to himself.

  “Hey…” he started to say. But then at the far end of the hallway Sammy appeared around the corner, running back towards them, waving frantically and with one finger held up in front of his lips for silence.

  Then they all heard it. Hard voices getting nearer, calling out to each other with curt, military commands. Soldiers! Hana looked around hastily. There! She pointed desperately at the doorway next to Hugh. He opened it, looked through and nodded back at her, before waving everyone through. Thomas and Dwayne went through first with everyone else following on.

  Hana took one last moment to draw a huge knife, almost the size of a machete, from its scabbard on the belt of the dead soldier, and looked up to see that Gina had dropped to one knee at her shoulder to cover her, aiming her pistol at the corner of the hallway towards the approaching voices. She flashed the younger woman a grateful smile, then grabbed her and the two of them darted through the door. They were the last to go through, and Hugh silently closed it behind them.

  They found themselves in a wide maintenance corridor. Huge air ducts ran the length of the passage along one wall, and against the opposite wall were control panels and industrial sized air-conditioning units covered in tarpaulins. Bloody handprints on the canvas matched the scarlet spatter and drag marks on the floor.

  “Finally!” Thomas exclaimed, picking up a bloody hatchet from the floor, obviously dropped by whomever had been attacked in the corridor. Then he looked at it almost comically. In his massive hand it looked like a child’s toy.

  “It’s a little small for you, buddy,” Dwayne said. “But look at these babies.” He pointed at a cluster of sturdy, metal stands used for holding up a velvet rope barrier. They looked as if they had just been shoved into the corridor for storage. Unhooking the thick, burgundy-colored rope, Dwayne picked up one stand and quickly unscrewed the base, leaving him with a stainless-steel pole around three feet long and as thick as his wrist. He smacked it into his palm with a meaty slap. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  The others grabbed the other stands and followed suit, unhooking the twisted red rope and unscrewing the base off each pole, although Thomas opted to keep the base attached to his pole for extra weight. He handed the small axe to Hana, who shoved it into her belt. Hugh handed his hammer to Gina, who did the same. Then Thomas moved over to Gina and beckoned her to one side.

  “I want you to have this,” he said pulling the large diving wristwatch off his wrist and handing it to her.

  “Um, thanks,” Gina weighed the heavy wristwatch in her hand thoughtfully. “I’m touched, but you’ve noticed how small my wrists are, right? This is way too big. Am I supposed to wear it as a collar? Besides I already have a wristwatch.”

  “If we are split up, or something happens to me, you get yourself to the beach, pull this button out and press it three times.” Thomas’s eyes were serious as he looked into her face. “It is a GPS beacon and will call for Herr Behnke’s boat to bring you out of the quarantine zone. He and I each have one. I will be with him at all times. I want you to have this one.”

  “Oh…” Gina was touched. “Thank you, Thomas.”

  The big man smiled and moved back to take up a position next to his employer. Gina looked around and saw that Dwayne was standing right behind her. He looked down at the watch in her hand.

  “Damn, I’m going to stick close to you,” he said, smiling and nodded towards the wristwatch.

  “You promise?” Gina asked. She stepped close to him and craned her neck to look up into his eyes. Her face was only inches away from his, and he could smell the faint scent of her perfume. Dwayne’s mocking smile disappeared to be replaced by an expression as serious as hers.

  “I promise,” he said. Then his eyes widened slightly in surprise as she put the wristwatch around his wrist and fastened the strap.

  “Get me out of here,” she whispered. He nodded back tightly, eyes searching hers for a second.

  “I will.” Then the cocky smile was back on his face and he moved back to take up his position once again at the front of the group. He turned around and winked at her. She smiled back, then checked her pistol and moved to the rear.

  “Let’s keep moving,” said Hana, leading off down the corridor. Emboldened by the feel of the solid metal poles in their hands, the rest followed as quietly as they could. Only Wilkins kept looking at the pole in his hands as if he were unsure what to do with it. He looked around at Gina, bringing up the rear, who gave him an encouraging smile and motioned to him to keep moving forward.

  At the end of the corridor was another door. Grimacing at the memory of her previous disaster when opening a closed door, and with her nose still throbbing with pain, Hana firmly planted her booted foot two inches behind the door to prevent it from being smashed into her face. Then, after checking the others were ready, she silently opened the door a crack and peeked through.

  “Clear,” she whispered and opened the door fully. She stepped to the side and let the men glide through, metal poles held up at the ready. As they filed past her, she rolled her eyes as she saw Behnke flexing his muscles for the benefit of Rob’s camera, who was still filming every detail of the events around him. She smiled at Gina, bringing up the rear, and had just opened her mouth to speak when Hugh came rushing back.

  “You have to see this,” he whispered urgently, a troubled look on his face.

  “Zombies?” she mouthed quietly.

  “No. Well yes, but no immediate danger. Just look and you’ll understand.”

  Intrigued by his curious comment, Hana and Gina followed him around a bend into a larger room to be confronted with a bizarre sight.

  They were in a viewing area, confronted by a transparent chamber containing a man who was banging on the glass, shouting at Behnke, who was bent over a console right in front of him. Thomas was hunched over, mouth close to Behnke’s ear, speaking rapidly in German with a furious expression on his face. Behnke held his hand up, told his bodyguard to shut up and continued to study the console. A voice was coming out of the speaker on the console, some woman begging for help, saying she was trapped in room 403. Behnke angrily turned off the radio and carried on working on the screen.

  The glass must have been thick, Hana realized, because even though the imprisoned stranger was clearly shouting at the top of his lungs, and slamming bruised fists into the glass only inches from Behnke’s face, no sound at all escaped the sealed chamber. Cameras in the ceiling of the chamber and hanging down outside, above the console, covered every square inch of the bare room inside.

  “I think I know that guy,” Hana frowned as recognition slowly dawned. “Yes, I do. It’s Mister Qureshi, one of my regular customers. He’s a bounty hunter.”

  “We need to get through that chamber and out the other side,” Behnke said without looking around, “and this console controls those airlocks.” He pointed to the left-hand side of the glass wall.

  Hana looked and saw that there was indeed a double-door, forming an airlock leading into the chamber, mirrored by an identical airlock on the other side. Beyond the transparent cell there appeared to be an identical viewing chamber. The airlocks had large numbers ‘1’ and ‘2’ above them. She also noted that on the right-hand side of their room was a stairwell leading downwards.

  “What’s down those stairs? Why don’t we just go down there?”

  “No!” Behnke turned around to look at them all, face flushed with anger. “I am in charge. And I say we need to go through. We need to get out of this building, not go even further down to the next basement level.”

  “So, what’s the hold-up? Just open the doors.” Gina said. She exchanged glances with Hana who looked similarly puzzled.

  “We think it releases a zombie into the cell,” Rob said, from the far corner. He had back
ed up so that he could film the whole scene from the widest possible angle. “And judging from that poor fella’s reaction, I’d guess we are probably right.”

  Hana walked over to the console and watched Behnke tapping rapidly through the menu options. They kept on returning to the same screen, informing them that an experiment had been started and that airlock doors could not be opened until the protocol had been completed. A confirmation button kept popping up asking if the user wanted to implement ‘Stage 3: Introduce Infected Specimen?”

  Hana and Gina both looked up and around at the chamber more closely. They both saw the almost hidden door on the right at the same time as each other. Behind a tiny window in the door a hungry pair of eyes bobbed up and down. Infected. Hana felt goose bumps rise on her arms. Holy shit. Next to her Gina put her hand to her mouth and looked as if she was going to throw up.

  “No way,” Gina mumbled through her fingers. “This is fucked up. What is this place?”

  “Okay, here’s the way I see it,” Behnke said. “We introduce the zombie. It attacks that guy. While it is distracted by him, we go into the chamber through airlock one, kill the zombie, exit through airlock two and out the other side. Who’s with me?”

  “Let’s just go down the stairs and find another way through,” said Hana, horrified at how casually Behnke was considering using up the life of another human being, simply to bypass an obstacle.

  On the other side of the glass Qureshi was frantic, sweating profusely, shaking his head and mouthing ‘NO’. His eyes bulged with terror and kept glancing over at the door, behind which a clearly agitated zombie was waiting, attracted by the sight of prey just out of reach.

  “Downstairs to what? More zombies? More horror-show experiments? More soldiers?” Behnke sneered at her. “In case you haven’t noticed, there is a major outbreak taking place right around us right now. Dozens, maybe hundreds of people are dying all over this building, even as we speak. One more death makes no difference at all. You may think that I am being ruthless or cold-blooded, but I intend to survive this mess. And my best chance of staying alive is to exit this building as fast as possible. Through this chamber.” Behnke looked over at Thomas, “No more arguments, get over here. Now who else is with me?”

  Thomas looked ashamed as he walked over to stand behind Behnke. He started to say something quietly to Behnke but was quickly shushed. Sammy and Friedman walked over to stand with Behnke as well. Both men had seen what had happened in their prison block and could imagine, far better than Behnke, the carnage that was undoubtedly taking place in the huge building around them. Sammy flashed a sickly smile at the rest of the group and shrugged his shoulders apologetically. Friedman showed no emotion, and simply looked down at the console screen.

  “How does this work then?” the former prison guard asked Behnke.

  “You line up at the airlock. I will start the next phase of the procedure, then run over to join you. As soon as the doors open, we go straight in. If that zombie tries to stop us, there are four of us, we kick its ass.”

  “Let’s do it.” Friedman walked over to where Thomas and Sammy were already waiting. Thomas was scowling furiously, with a face like a dark thundercloud. Sammy was sweating profusely, a damp sheen across his forehead as he clutched his pole in a white-knuckled death grip.

  Behnke tapped ‘confirm’ and the light turned green over the door in the side of the chamber. Qureshi screamed silently and backed up as far away as he could against the opposite wall, but it was no use. The door slid upwards and the zombie waiting on the other side lunged through like a starving leopard. It was across the room and on top of Qureshi in the blink of an eye. He flailed underneath it, kicking desperately as Hana watched in horror, unable to take her eyes off the bloody rips appearing in his face and arms as the zombie clawed and bit at him. Behind her she heard Gina sobbing in horror.

  “Fuck!” Behnke shouted at the console. “Come on, why won’t the doors open?” He stabbed down on windows on the screen as they popped up one after another. “Verify, verify, yes, yes … Here we go. ‘Clean up protocol’, open airlock doors, confirm. Finally!” He looked up triumphantly as lights over both airlock doors turned green. The doors slid open and Thomas slipped through.

  Inside the chamber Qureshi had stopped moving, although shallow breaths bubbled up through the scarlet ruin of his throat. His face and one of his eyeballs lay on the floor next to him in a widening pool of blood. The other eyeball seemed to stare accusingly at Hana through the glass, as the zombie crouched over his head, gnawing at the top of his skull.

  The infected looked up just in time to catch Thomas’s pole in the center of its face. The huge bodyguard was swinging the pole like he was trying to hit a home run, and the front of the zombie’s head disintegrated inwards as it snapped back, lifting its entire body off the floor and hurling it into a crumpled heap several feet away.

  Then Qureshi’s body started to twitch and Sammy’s mouth opened in a gaping ‘O’ of horror. Friedman jumped away like a startled cat as Qureshi lifted his faceless head up towards him. Thomas turned back from the first zombie, took one quick step and executed a perfect golf swing, caving in the side of Qureshi’s skull and sending the bounty hunter’s corpse sliding in a lifeless sprawl across to the other wall.

  “Hana,” Gina’s voice came from behind the taller woman. “Why is the screen flashing red?”

  Hana looked down at the console in front of her. There was a warning window, flashing in red; ‘Warning: Close Infected Pen’. Oh shit. She looked up at the still open door from which the original zombie had emerged. Friedman was standing with his back to it. He never even saw the second zombie that leapt out from the darkness on to his back.

  Hana and the others watched in horror as the scene in front of them played out in total silence behind the glass. Inside the chamber the other three recoiled in shock from the unexpected attack as Friedman went down, screaming in pain. Sammy and Behnke lunged for the door at airlock two, with the smaller convict scraping through just a hair’s breadth in front of Behnke. Thomas backed up, right on their heels, his pole raised high, ready to strike. The zombie looked up from Friedman’s corpse at his escaping prey and ran after them.

  Hana stabbed desperately at the screen. Goddamn it, close infected pen, come on! Another window popped up, ‘IP Door disabled. Airlock 2 Door Open. Close Airlock Doors First.’ She looked back at the chaos inside the chamber. All three of them had passed through the airlock, and Thomas was holding the door, trying to shut it, but the infected had managed to get his arm through, clawing at his chest, and preventing the door from sliding closed.

  On the floor, Friedman started twitching and he stood up, facing Hana straight through the glass. Her eyes flicked left to the light above airlock one which was still green. Friedman followed her gaze towards the door, and she could have sworn she saw the glint of understanding in his undead eyes.

  “Dwayne, grab the airlock door!” she screamed, just as the zombie blurred into sudden motion.

  Both Friedman and Dwayne arrived at the airlock at the same time, but the inner door took time to cycle and by the time the undead prison guard was pawing at the outer door the big Hawaiian had his foot and shoulder firmly wedged against it, preventing it from sliding open automatically. More and more zombies sprinted into the chamber through the still open door from their storage pen, attracted by the noise and the smell of flesh blood. It only took a few seconds before the room was full, and the glass wall was filled with grotesquely mutilated zombies, scratching at the glass and breaking their teeth on it, as they tried to get through at the humans on the other side.

  “Everyone down the stairs!” Hana shouted, face ashen with fear. She and Hugh led the way, with Rob and Wilkins tumbling down after them. Only Gina stayed behind at the top of the steps.

  The petite singer took a deep breath into the bottom of her lungs and exhaled hard as she took up a shooting stance. Okay, control the fear. The discipline of a thousand, pre-concert rou
tines slammed down on her shrieking nerves, and she braced her arms on top of the hand-rail of the stairs. She ignored the gory, gnashing faces of the undead just on the other side of the silent glass, gripped her pistol firmly and aimed it at the door that Dwayne was holding shut.

  “Gina, just go! Fuck it, girl, just save yourself. I’ll hold the door.” Dwayne shouted desperately over his shoulder.

  “You’ve got my wristwatch,” she bared her teeth in a fierce smile. “Get your ass over here. I’ll cover you.”

  Dwayne looked at her in disbelief. Then laughed, before setting his feet and loosening his shoulders, ready to move. “Okay, you ready?”

  “Ready.” Gina exhaled once more and focused on the front sight of her pistol. They’re not people, they’re just targets.

  Dwayne bounced to the left, to give her a clear field of fire, and then sprinted straight towards the stairwell. Almost immediately the airlock door slid open and the first zombies poured in, their dripping jaws agape. Gina held her fire, to let them get their footing and start running straight towards her. Then she started pulling the trigger, smoothly switching from target to target. She tracked her gunsights from left to right, ignoring the sprays of blood, and closed her ears to the roar of the gun and the meaty thwack as the hollow-point rounds impacted into the faces of the undead, mushrooming through their brain cavities and blowing out the back of their skulls. Then she was out of bullets and the slide locked back on her pistol with an audible click.