With a new wave of excitement he began running around back to the locked rooms, peering inside through any windows, hoping to see if there was some indication of a devastating secret. Something, anything, that would make Paul’s warning seem rational. Most of the rooms were still dark. Of the ones he could see inside, all the rooms were empty. A couple looked badly trashed, with some dried blood splatters on the walls and chairs and tables upturned. One had a light fixture hanging loose from the ceiling on a single cable, its light occasionally flickering like lightning. But nothing good, nothing he had not really already seen upstairs.His fear of disappointment washed over him again. It didn’t make much sense to him that Paul would go through all this effort to keep these secrets, and then there would be nothing to him. Maybe he had been telling the truth. Maybe behind these locked doors, there were only dangerous diseases that Jay had risked letting loose on the world. Maybe Gabriel
“It’s bullshit!” Jay shot back, finally recovered enough to speak properly. “It’s all bullshit. Everything Paul said. He’s a lying, backstabbing, no-good son of a…”Jay stopped himself and glanced around, seeming to realize for the first time that there were other people there.“Look, just come with me,” he finished, almost meekly.“Fine,” Robert agreed, just wanting to get this over with. “Lead the way.”Jay had not intended for anyone other than Robert to come, but the whole group, enveloped by their own curiosity, decided to follow along. As they traveled, they passed Matthew, Donald, and Gabriel, who took note of the procession and decided that they, too, belonged in this group and fell into step behind them.They entered the office buildings and followed Jay down a maze of corridors until they came across a door none of them had noticed before. It was propped open only thanks to Jay’s shirt, which Robert figured to be a much more reasonable explanation for where the item of cloth
“-Alpha 10,” finished the voice, and as it did the faint image of a young man in army greens became visible. “The time is 0807. We are here assisting Dr. Totenberg and his assistant Dr. Delambre on their expedition of the caves.”“Blah blah blah,” came another voice, and the camera shifted to reveal another soldier, walking toward the first. “Do we really gotta do this shit?”“This ‘shit’ as you call it is important scientific research,” came an angry German voice. Now the camera focused on a third man, a man wearing khaki work clothes over a button down shirt and tie. He was balding, his dark brown hair making a little scoop along the center of his head like it was a solitary starfighter in the epic battle against time and age. Tall, thick glasses hung on a small, round nose that looked as though it would not be able to support this weight without the aid of the bushy brown mustache standing so firmly beneath it. “Need I remind you that Ryerson pays your bills, Private?”The impertin
By now, the unit had begun firing, and the sound of semi-automatic rifle bursts filled the cave. At various moments shouts could be heard to the effect of, “Over there! Something moving! In the shadows! What the hell?” These exclamations would always be punctuated by more rapid gunfire.Despite their frantic efforts, however, the soldiers were being picked off one by one. In the corner of the screen, two more were pulled away by an unseen force. Something large and white pounced on a third and disappeared out of the frame. Only two soldiers remained on screen. They took a few steps as they fired, and then when something landed on the man furthest away from the camera the last man turned and fled. He was definitely not the only one in the group, as the echo of footsteps resounded like cannon fire against the walls, and shouts of “Retreat!” and “Get the hell out of here!” could be heard.The camera man yanked up his camera and turned from the room, quickly running back the way they had
“No, it was not,” Paul agreed, nodding.“It was more like… what? A superman?”“Well… no,” Paul admitted, “not that either, really. What came out wasn’t what we expected. The subject nearly succumbed to the treatments. We were forced to operate, to amputate…” Paul stopped, shaking his head as though he were trying to shake away the memories, “By the time we were done, he was more like a mutant, a monster. It was horrible. None of us expected him to live. We never thought that, in a large sense, we had succeeded. As a nightmare... thing... that he had become by the end of it, he had grown so strong, so powerful. He broke his restraints without effort, and attacked the nearest doctors. He… bit them. We didn’t know what it meant at the time. Actually, we thought they were lucky that they’d gotten off light, especially considering what he did to some others when he got further through the complex. He broke into one room and tore all the doctors in their limb from limb.“When he finally esc
Robert nodded his head and scratched thoughtfully at the rough shadow of a beard beginning to edge its way onto his ruggedly handsome features. He turned and surveyed everyone else in the room. “He’s right that a cure or some kind of vaccine would be useful, but I’ll be the first to acknowledge that keeping zombies so close to where we live is a clear and present danger. I can’t be the one to make this decision. If you all think it’s too much of a threat…” his voice trailed off, leaving the thought hanging in the air between them.“Maybe we can keep a guard in the basement,” Jay suggested.“Is there any way we could help with developing the cure?” Elaina asked.Paul considered it, but only for a moment. “I don’t think so,” he answered, shaking his head. “It’s pretty advanced stuff, even for me. Our team basically invented new forms of medical science. Unless there’s anyone in your group with advanced biochemistry degrees?”“There might be something else we can do,” Gabriel said sudde
Gabriel opened his mouth to respond, but then immediately closed it again. “Well, when you put it like that…” he mumbled.“Good,” Jake said. “So we’re agreed that this plan is insane and not worth discussing any longer.” She turned and started walking away, but Gabriel slammed his fist down on a nearby table, halting her in her tracks.“Dammit, fine. You know what? Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is insane. Maybe I am crazy for trying to supplant reality with mythology, legend, and science fiction. Okay, yes, it is a stretch to assume that just because a lot of stories agree on how these things work, and even though reality seems to be reflecting that consensus, that I should expect everything to pan out just the way I would hope. I can accept that I’m reaching here.“But you know what? I wouldn’t put this as being any more insane then zombies and vampires really existing in the first place. But there they are, out there, driving to Hell what’s left of the world we knew. And what are w
Gabriel .”There was some grumbling from the crowd, but nobody spoke up about it again.“What guarantee do we have that any of this will even work?” Daniel said, breaking through the mutterings.“None,” Gabriel answered for Marshall. “Just like they have been saying, this might be nothing more than a stupid, foolish suicide mission. I can’t promise you that we’ll even find this vampire that started the curse. I can’t promise you that we’ll make it five minutes outside those walls, let alone five days, weeks, years, or however long it will take to find this creature. Paul can’t promise you that his evil petting zoo won’t escape. He can’t promise you that he will ever actually find a cure. Everything is unknown, and all directions lead to danger. That’s the basic reality of living in a zombie apocalypse. Literature certainly tells us that, and all of you certainly have to have lived through enough of one to know that for yourselves by now.“But this isn’t about promises. It isn’t abou