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
With that off his chest, Gabriel turned and stormed out of the room.Everyone turned to Rico to see how he would respond. He just re-crossed his arms and scoffed. “Yeah, whatever,” he muttered.For a long moment nobody said anything. Somebody coughed into the silence.Suddenly, Paul spoke up. “To be fair to Gabriel , even if he’s wrong there is a way this trip could possibly be helpful.” As all eyes turned on him he began to look a little embarrassed, and nervously cleared his throat. “That is to say, there is something he could do on this trip that might help. Help me, I mean.”“Well, spit it out man!” Robert demanded.“Well it’s just… you see… basically what he’s trying to do is track down the index case.”“Index case?”Paul nodded. “Yeah. What you might call the patient zero. The origin of the disease. The place where it all started. If we had Patient Zero, it might help me narrow down how to fight the disease. Unfortunately Patient Zero could have lived thousands of years ago for
jake turned to Daniel first, her gaze cold enough to make ice. “Daniel, Daina is a grown woman and can make her own damn decisions. You don’t own her. You can’t tell her what she can and can’t do.”“Thank you!” Daina exclaimed triumphantly.jake spun on the other woman, her gaze just as cold and solemn. “And you, Daina. You have to realize that if you go with us, you are probably not coming back. Ever. That means never seeing Daniel again. And while right now that may sound best to you…” her voice trailed off as she reached down for Daina’s hand. She lifted it up and, in a somewhat ironic reversal of Daina’s own movements only moments before, shoved the engagement ring in the woman’s face. “You made a promise to try and make this work between the two of you. So you better be damn sure that there are no other options for your relationship.”She turned away from the group and started back toward the SUV. “Whatever you decide, do it quickly. We’re burning daylight.”Daniel looked pleadin
“This first way, it looks like we avoid any towns or anything, but we don’t have enough gas to get us around that way, and we don’t know if we’ll be able to gather up anything. If we keep going straight, we should hit some neighborhoods just skirtin’ around the outside of this little town here. This last way we’re gonna be driving straight through the center of this other town here.”“I’m just gonna go ahead and call that one Samarra,” said Jay.“It does seem like straight ahead is our best option,” added Gabriel.By this point, the zombie group had finished crossing the road, so they started off again. When the CD that was playing ended, Aliyah ejected it as she rummaged around for a different one.“Oh, thank God,” muttered Gabriel when the silence resumed. After a moment he realized everyone was looking at him. “What?”“You have something against musicals?” jake asked.“You mean, other than the fact that they’re the sonic equivalent of having your eardrums slowly ripped apart by a
At the end of the line Gabriel found another big building, which he knew the moment he stepped inside had to be a barracks. It was like a much larger version of the living quarters at the compound they had found in Texas. Just four long lines of beds stretching across the length of the room, with no care shown for privacy or individuality. All part of the process of breaking the spirit.“Newbie.”Gabriel turned toward the sound of the voice, to see someone, a prisoner, not a guard, judging from his clothes, staring at him. The stranger pointed toward the far wall and said, “You’ll want to see the manager. Hurry up.”Following with his eyes to where the man was pointing, Gabriel could see a window set into the wall, and realized there was probably some kind of office over there. He nodded a quick thanks to the man, only to discover he had already walked away, and then headed down the lines of beds toward the office.The door to the small room was open, and inside he found a woman se
“Uh… no,” replied Gabriel , noting strong hints of what seemed like a British accent in the creatures voice. “It’s an old term for a creature that slowly spreads through a village like a plague.”“Ah, such as the Vourdalak.”Gabriel blinked in surprise at this comment, stunned into silence.“Yes, well,” the creature continued, “it has long been the modus operandi of your kind to blame others for your own wrong doings. Judging from the state of things, I would say you plagued yourselves plenty well enough on your own without any help from me or mine. No doubt you still think yourself clever for the snide comment, however.”Gabriel had felt clever for the remark, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit that now.The vampire placed his cane on the ground and leaned on it with both hands, bending down to stare at Gabriel from a smaller distance.“Where are your others?” he asked.Gabriel ’s eyes widened, but he just shook his head. “What others?”“Don’t lie to me. We returned to the
“Turn out all your pockets, then,” said the big man. Gabriel did as he was told, or at least as well as he could seeing as most of the pockets in his cargo pants weren’t really designed for being turned out.When the others were satisfied he wasn’t carrying anything, the man tipped his head up to indicate Gabriel should move through the turnstile.Once through, the first figure motioned for him to stand on a line taped to the floor. She was holding one of the devices from the table in her right hand, a weird thing that looked a little like an electric razor only with a sharp point at the end instead of round blades. Once he was in place she said, “Roll up your sleeve and place your left arm on the table.”“What?” he asked stupidly. “Left sleeve. Arm. Table,” she answered, pointing at each thing in turn as she said it.Gabriel stared at the device in her hands but otherwise did not move. “What are you going to do with that?” he asked.Hands grabbed him from behind, pulling at his
“Hey, what’s the big idea?” Gabriel asked, annoyed. He blinked rapidly, clearing away more of the blurriness, until he could see that this wasn’t Joe and the others. He was surrounded by zombies. Gabriel let out a yelp and fell backwards, only to be shoved again from that side. This time the shove balanced him onto his feet, and he turned around to find that there were more zombies back in that direction, cutting off his path to the inside of the hospital. He turned toward the parking lot, only to see zombies had moved into position there, as well. He continued circling and found that he was surrounded on all sides by the undead. They had trapped him in, with nowhere to run. He felt like crying. He felt like panicking. But neither would help him then. So he closed his eyes, tucked his chin into his shoulder, and waited for the end. But nothing happened. Gabriel could hear some shuffling of feet, some of the eerie, inhuman moans that seemed to be an involuntary sound that the
Gabriel was fairly confident he couldn’t be seen from his position, since the doctor hadn’t noticed him yet. But undoubtedly the doctor was finally taking note of the rearranged equipment in the room. The beds moved out of place, the random cart just visible over the top of the halfway wall. At first glance it all might have looked normal enough, but the closer scrutiny he gave it as he stood there talking was enough to finally make him realize the difference. Bennet stopped talking and began walking, straight down the hallway toward the room. He moved cautiously, as though expecting at any moment to step on a landmine, but he continued on regardless. He reached the door, opening it with the same level of caution, peering around one last time before finally stepping into the room. After a moment he stumbled, one leg catching on a strip of cloth that tore away. A shelf of equipment came crashing down, slamming the door shut and barring across it as various items smashed against the
Horror movies told him that he should be looking at somebody horribly deformed, or wearing the skin of another person, or with a head full of small, scary spikes. Something. This guy could have been his doctor in the days before and Gabriel would’ve thought nothing of it. This man could’ve walked up to the gates of Joe’s little bunker community and they would’ve let him in and never thought twice about it. It was terrifying to contemplate. “Hello?” the man called, and just the sound of that simple word, muted and muffled as it was coming through the wall, turned Gabriel ’s blood to ice.The stranger started to turn away from the room, but then something made him stop and turn back.“Are you there?” the man continued calling out as he surveyed the room through the window with what looked like, at least in Gabriel ’s opinion, a sadistic grin. “That wasn’t what it looked like. I was trying to help that man.”Yeah, real convincing, thought Gabriel , but he remained silent as he crawled
He considered his options, favoring the one that said he could just wait there for the others to show up. But he didn’t know how long that would be and there was some good he could do inside the building while there.So taking a deep, steadying breath he pushed his way through the nearest doorway and headed deeper into the hospital.The hallways were dark, which was expected, but that expectation didn’t stop them from being especially eerie. Somehow, here and there, some emergency lights still clung desperately to life, flickering on and off at random times, throwing long, twisted shadows where they could span across the walls and floors, and leap out from around corners. The daylight provided sufficient illumination to counteract the lack of interior lighting, but as all the windows on the ground floor seemed to be either heavily tinted or located where the light bounced first off of walls before entering the rooms, the bluish glow it created only added to the ominous mood of the hos
“Gabriel !”Sturdy hands wrapped around his upper arms and shook him. He turned his head and his clearing vision made out the image of Joe standing in front of him. “Gabriel , get it together. We have to go. Now!”Gabriel nodded his head and tried to take a deep breath, and then found himself taking several quick gasping breaths. Was he panicking? He didn’t have time to panic.With as much certainty as he could manage he nodded his head. “Right,” he agreed, “let’s go.”They each turned and ran off in separate directions.This had all been worked out in advance, each person memorizing a map of the town, studying it, learning each street and alleyway. They’d all settled on a divided running path before they ever stepped foot outside of the base. So Gabriel knew where to go.Or he thought he did.Though he hadn’t been willing to admit it with the others, he had never been particularly good with maps, not great at visualizing the 2D images with 3D spaces. So it wasn’t that surprising w
“I’m telling you, you go to that place, the only thing you have to look forward to is death. You’re better off here. Just keep your heads down, hide out, and maybe they’ll never come for you. That’s the best thing to hope for.”There was a long silence marked only by the sound of some uncomfortable shuffling. Claire stepped forward so she could get a better look at him. “But… Gabriel … you went into the caves. You tried to make a difference.”“I was wrong, okay?”Gabriel shouted the words so loud that Claire took a step back.“I was wrong. I was an idiot and I was wrong and people suffered because I was wrong. I suffered because I was wrong. The world is worse off now than it was before, all because I had to go play hero. Well there are no heroes. There’s only the living and the dead and you’re either one or the other. You can stay here and stay alive or you can go out there and join the ranks of the dead. Those are your options. I don’t care which you choose, but if you choose deat