Dead Soil | Book 3 | Dead World, page 19
part #3 of Dead Soil Series
"Well done," Dr. Bhatt said, though her voice alone would never have hinted at the fact that she was proud of their spoils. "These will do nicely. Get them to the holding rooms and we'll begin testing immediately." She spoke these words to no one in particular as all staff were gathered in the entryway for their return. Christine and Zack knew she was talking to them, just like last time. And just like last time Jonathan was the only one to step up and help, even though he fumbled with the writhing bodies and shied away from carrying their upper halves.
"I didn't think you guys would be back so soon," he said to Zack as they carried the older man together. Christine had thrown the teenage boy over her shoulder fireman-style since his mouth was taped shut and his hands and feet were bound. He was so skinny he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds. "Last time it took almost a week for you to get those two back. It's only been what? Three days and you come back with three more? How'd you do it?"
Zack let out a gruff snort. "It wasn't easy, that's for sure." He grunted as he shifted the man's weight in his arms. "This guy we found stuck on an abandoned L-train. We had to pry the door open to get to him. There was one other more spoiled zombie with him, I'm guessing the one who attacked him, but he was in pretty rough shape and couldn't move so well which is why this one isn't so bad off."
Jonathan's eyes widened until the whites were showing around his brown irises. "Wow! That's amazing," he gasped, a grin forming in the corners of his lips. "Then what?"
Zack shifted the zombie's weight again, gripping him tighter under the arms with the crook of his own arms. They were headed down the stairs, Jonathan going backwards which meant Zack had to bend his back slightly and lean forward to go down. He was feeling the strain after the days they'd been through. "Then, we found the girl. She'd been locked in a utility closet at the Millennium train station. We heard her banging away, which is why her hands are so scratched and bruised. Judging by the look of her she'd been in there for over a week. Almost two."
"That means she's just about as fresh as your friend then," the intern said casually, unaware of the look that overtook Zack's face.
"Gretchen," he said in a low voice. "Her name is Gretchen."
Jonathan realized what he'd said and his cheeks flushed a deep crimson. "I am so sorry. I didn't mean to…"
Zack cut him off with a shake of his head. "It's fine. Don't worry about it. I know you didn't mean anything by it." He cleared his throat and then continued on with his story. "The closet wasn’t even locked when we found it. It was just shut on her and the poor thing couldn't figure out how to open it again."
"Amazing how reasoning and deductive skills are one of the first things to go in the transformation," Jonathan mused like a true scientist, more interested in how it worked while totally missing the human aspect.
"And the teenage boy we actually found in the midst of his attack. We were walking down State Street in the shopping district when we heard this dull humming sound. We followed it a few more blocks until we reached the river and on the bridge there was this teenage boy, frightened to death and all alone, standing trapped in the middle with groups of twenty or more zombies closing in on either side of him."
Jonathan's mouth parted and sat agape as he listened, enraptured. "How did you save him from being devoured?"
"Christine and I knew we had to go in full force to get him out. Really, we had wanted to save him and get him out of there unscathed despite our mission but things don't always go the way we want them to. Christine and I fought our way through the twenty or so zombies closest to us while we kept an eye on the horde across the bridge making its way over." He chuckled, looking ahead at Christine as she carried the young boy over her shoulder with ease and grace down the darkened hall to the holding rooms. "She really is something else with that bow," he said with admiration. "Better than her instructor ever was. She cleared out at least twelve of them without ever having to touch them. Pew-pew-pew, one right after another like some Elvin goddess." His gaze was far off as if he were back on that bridge rather than making his way down the dank basement hallway. "I took down a few too with my sword. We reached the kid but just as the first of the other horde reached him. One took hold of his arm and bit into it just as I grabbed his hand and yanked him back towards me. We got the hell out of there as fast as we could, practically carrying him screaming under my arm. There was no way the zombies could keep up and eventually we lost them."
“That’s an amazing story,” Jonathan mused with a wondrous grin.
Zack squatted to place the thrashing body down on the floor of the holding room next to Gretchen’s, the one the woman from the apartment had been in just days ago. “Not entirely uncommon for the year we’ve had.”
“It is for me.”
“What happened to the woman who was in here? Is she still doing OK?” Zack asked, changing the subject from the horrors he faced out there to more important matters. No one had bothered to update them on how the last two subjects were fairing.
“Oh, she’s fine. We moved her to a more comfortable room where she could have a little privacy. She’s fully herself again, just a little traumatized I guess you would say. It’s going to take her a while to cope with it all.”
“Does she remember being a zombie?”
Jonathan moved his foot nervously on the concrete floor as he shoved his hands into his lab coat pockets. “She says she doesn’t but…” He wavered, unsure of how to continue.
“But what?”
“But we can hear her screaming at night. I think she relives it in her nightmares.”
Zack let out a deep breath and shook his head. He couldn’t help feeling responsible for what the woman was going through, or wondering if Gretchen would have the same nightmares. Just then someone he didn’t recognize threw down the body of the twenty-something female zombie like she was nothing more than a sack of potatoes.
“Careful!” Zack yelled, his body going rigid with offense.
The guy in jeans and a lab coat looked at him like he had no idea what he was upset about. “It’s a zombie, mate.”
Zack’s jaw clenched so tight he had to talk through his teeth. “That we’re trying to make human again. Damage her brain and that’s not going to be possible, is it? Do you know what we had to go through out there to get these three back here?”
The man stood, relaxed, staring, his mouth firm with no answer.
“Of course you don’t, because you’ve been hiding away in here for a year while we’ve been out there doing everything we can just to survive!” His gruff voice echoed down the hall, making Christine pop her head out of the holding room she placed the teenage boy in. Zack’s chest was rising and falling with deep, aggravated breaths.
“Thanks, Phil,” Jonathan said as a dismissal. Phil took the hint, shrugged his shoulders and walked back up the stairs without a word.
“You OK?” Christine asked Zack, placing her hand lightly on his arm.
Zack ran his hand through his bristly beard and tugged down on it. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Why don’t you two head back to your room and rest?” Jonathan suggested kindly. “I’ll come get you once we know the results from these three. There’s no point in you sticking around and waiting. They won’t get started for a while anyway.”
“Yeah,” Christine agreed, pulling Zack a little to get him to come with her. “We could use a nap.”
Back in the employee lounge Zack sprawled out on two chairs he pushed together facing each other, his legs hanging over the back of one side while his head hung behind the other. Christine was curled up on a padded ottoman nearby. Her eyes flickered open, her vision blurred as she drifted from the land of sleep back into consciousness. She rubbed the corners of her eyes to clear them as she sat up, stretching her arms high above her head to loosen her aching muscles. Somehow through it all her mind felt rested. When she glanced out the large window across from them her stomach tightened and then dropped. It was dark outside. How long had they been asleep?
“Zack,” she said and she reached over and gave him a shove. “Zack, wake up!” He grunted and sat up, his eyes narrowed and heavy from being ripped from his peaceful dream.
“Wha…what is it?”
“It’s night,” she answered before he could finish asking. “We’ve been asleep for hours!”
It took him a few seconds to register what she was saying but once he did he stood up and walked over to the window, as if double checking to make sure it was real and not a practical joke.
“Why haven’t they come to get us yet? They have to be done with the three we brought in by now…unless something is wrong,” she said, her voice rising in panic.
Zack rushed back over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders to look her in the eyes, sitting on the chair opposite her ottoman. “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” he said reassuringly. “Maybe they just wanted to let us get some rest and didn’t feel it was worth waking us if everything went according to plan.”
She nodded her head as she wrung her hands in her lap. “Yeah, maybe.”
The room was dark, almost too dark to see in so soon after waking. But as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light Christine gave a startling gasp. Zack turned violently to see what had frightened her behind him. Together they stared at a shadowed figure at the back of the room, lurking in the darkest corner. The figure took several steps forward into the pale moonlight that shone in a beam across the beige tile floor.
“Gretchen!” Christine shouted as she jumped to her feet. She didn’t think, she just ran for her sister with everything she had in her. With tears in her eyes, she threw her arms around her sister’s neck and squeezed. “How are you here?” she asked, her voice muffled from her face buried in her sister’s shoulder. Christine pulled away and touched Gretchen’s face, running her hands over her skin questioningly.
Her skin looked healthier than it had the last time she saw her, the pinkness returning as her heart pumped blood through her body normally again. She felt warm, like a living human should. Her eyes were still a little foggy, the blue in them more gray than usual, but Christine could tell they were consciously focused on her. There were thoughts behind those eyes, clear thoughts. Not a trace of brain devouring thoughts.
“I’m so happy to see you!” Christine said through ragged breaths as she hugged her sister again, the tears flowing now. “Zack!” she called over her shoulder.
Zack was still seated on the other side of the room, his eyes wide and bulging and his mouth parted in shock. His body sat rigid and unmoving, as if taking a single breath would evaporate the illusion in front of him.
“Zack!” Christine called again, unable to remove her hands from her sister. She worried too that if she did Gretchen would disappear and she’d awake from this dream.
Her voice shook Zack from his stupor. He stood slowly, pushing himself up for support with the back of the chair. His feet moved forward on their own, his mind completely void of all thought. His focus was solely on the woman in front of him, the woman who shouldn’t be there but there she was.
“I need to figure out what the hell is going on around here,” Christine said suddenly, still grasping her sister by the arm. “Can you stay with her while I go find someone who can give me some answers?”
“Sure,” Zack said.
“I swear, whoever did this without my permission, without even bothering to wake me up so I could be there with her…” Christine’s threats dissipated as she threw the door open and strode out into the hallway.
“Hi,” Zack whispered, a soft smile spreading across his lips.
Gretchen blushed, red rising in her cheeks. “Hi.”
“It’s really you, isn’t it?”
She looked down at her body and spread her arms. “As far as I know, unless they’ve replaced my insides with robotics, which would be pretty cool.”
Zack laughed as tears overtook his vision, dripping down into his beard. He closed the gap between them and wrapped his big arms around her now frail body, careful not to squeeze too tight in case it hurt her, or worse broke her. He still couldn’t believe she was real, standing in front of him, alive and well. She looked a little worse for the wear, some cuts and bruises and there was a line of black stitches where she’d been bit on the shoulder sticking out from her shirt collar. She still wore the dirty clothes she’d been wearing when she was turned.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t move at all, letting Zack hold her as long as he wanted. He took a deep breath, taking in the scent of her hair as it tickled his cheek. After a moment he took a step back but left one of his hands resting on the small of her back. She didn’t pull back against him at all, letting his hand hold her in place close to him. His eyes roved her face, as if searching to make sure she was really herself again, that this wasn’t a cruel trick. They settled on her soft, pink lips which she bit down onto lightly out of nervousness.
It was all too much for him to bear. Without warning he placed his other hand in her hair, grazing her neck as it moved to the back of her head. He brought his lips gently to hers, letting her press forward if she wanted to; and she did. Her hands slip up and around his face, her fingers running across his coarse beard and long, soft hair. Their mouths opened and closed in synchronicity and Zack decided it was the happiest he could ever remember feeling.
Christine burst into Dr. Bhatt’s office. She knew the doctor had to be there because there was a dim orange light flickering beneath the closed door. In the drab office a single candle burned on the desk.
“Do you mind telling me what the hell you think you’re doing?” she barked loudly.
“Well, right now I’m filling out the official charts so history is accurately recorded,” she said without looking up from the file she wrote in.
Christine charged forward and swiped across the desk, sending the papers flying through the air. “My sister!” she yelled just inches from the doctor’s face.
“Ah, that. Well we injected every subject you brought us and every single one of them came through it fine, so we administered it to your sister.”
“That wasn’t your choice to make! I wasn’t even there! I wanted to be with her!” Christine straightened herself up and paced the room like a caged animal, her eyes never leaving Dr. Bhatt.
“Actually, this is my facility. I am in charge here. Now, you brought your sister to us so we can help her and that’s exactly what we’ve done. And now I think it’s time for you, your sister, and your friend to leave.”
Christine froze in her tracks. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re not even going to observe her? Make sure she’s OK? You’re just going to revive her and send her on her way, hoping nothing bad happens?”
The doctor slammed her hands down on her desk and pushed herself up from her chair, eyes seething. “This vaccine is going to change the world. Thousands, millions, are going to need this to save their own loved ones if they can. This isn’t a hotel or a hospital,” she spat as she walked around the desk to stand in front of Christine, unfazed by the girl’s anger. “We’ve done it and now we have to start producing and distributing it in mass quantities, so I’m sorry but our role as gracious hosts is at its end for you. Leave.” She didn’t move, didn’t blink as she stared down at Christine harshly.
The doctor headed back for her chair, bending down to pick up the strewn papers. But Christine couldn’t leave it at that. She consciously reigned in her anger and put on a humbled tone. “What about side effects? What if she has a reaction or something? What if—”
Dr. Bhatt slammed the papers down on the desk and threw her hands in the air, letting them fall to slap against her thighs. “And what if the world falls apart? Oh wait! It already did. And now the fate of bringing it back to what it once was rests on my shoulders! Your sister is human again now, isn’t she?” She paused as if Christine were supposed to answer but Christine wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “That’s it then. Take her home. You’re welcome.” The doctor flopped back down in her chair and rested her head in her hand as if she were experiencing the onset of a migraine.
“We’ll get out of your hair, then, good doctor,” Christine said venomously as she strode out the room, slamming the door behind her. “Piece of work,” she said under her breath. She gasped when she almost ran headfirst into someone.
“Jonathan,” she said loudly. “You scared me.”
“I heard what happened in there,” he said, his eyes darting around nervously.
Christine clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I guess we’ve worn out our welcome. And after everything Zack and I did for her, to get her those test subjects. I can’t believe what a cold-hearted son of a—”
“Here,” Jonathan interrupted her, shoved something into her hands.
Christine furrowed her brow. “What’s this?” she asked as she stared down at the three vials in her hands.
“I know how this works,” he said quickly, agitated. “They’ll mass produce this and then they’ll do whatever they can to make their fortune off of it. Dr. Bhatt doesn’t care about saving the world. She cares about being the face of the cure, about the fame and glory and money it will bring her.” Christine could tell this was something the intern had lived with quietly over the past year, letting it bubble up inside him because he didn’t feel he had any other option. “This is three doses. Just in case.”
“In case what?”
“Who knows? Apparently we don’t have to monitor our patients to conclude its side effects before we distribute it. Protocol be damned, I guess. But if anything happens.”
“What could happen?” Christine wasn’t going to let this go with a vague warning.
