Degeneration (4 page)

Another crunchy footstep echoed in the still lab.

Above,
an el
ectrical hum resonated in the ceiling.

“
Electrical grid failure detected, rerouting to emergency power. A r
epair team and security
have been
notified
. Stand-by for power grid re-route
,” the pleasant female voice announced.

Air started gently flowing thr
ough the vents and rustled
the scattered
papers
on the floor. T
he ove
rhead lights slowly brightened back to life and revealed
the bloodied Dr. Raymond
standing behind the unaware Cpl. Andrews
.

Dr. Raymond
had been struck by multiple shots,
but he d
idn’t seem to notice. His clouded
eyes were focused directly at the side
of Cpl. Andrews’ turned head
.
He gave a guttural growl, grabbing Cpl. Andrews’ attention.

Cpl. Andrews startled and
quickly turned to
wards the doctor
.

“Ah, fuck–!” Cpl. Andrews
screamed as he raised his M16.

Dr. Raymond
quickly leapt onto him.

Cpl. Andrews shot a wild burst of gunfire as he tumbled backwards
to the floor, shooti
ng one of the overhead ceiling lights in the process
.

Dr. Raymond straddled him and knocked the
M16
aside with his forearm just as Cpl. Andrews gave
the trigger another squeeze.

Patrick
went f
lying backwards, screaming, as the automatic gunfire tore up along the center of his chest and shattered
his
facemask. He collapsed onto his back, twitching
.

Dr. Raymond
vomited on Cpl. Andrews’ facemask, but t
he bile
simply
beade
d-
up and rolled off of the clear
plastic. Undeterred, he leaned closer
and ripped a la
rge tare in the side of the
white-
suit
with his teeth
. He s
pat the piece
out and
sunk
his teeth int
o the side of Cpl. Andrews’ exposed
neck.

Cpl. Andrews screamed and withered in excruciating pain, struggling to get free.

The white-suited
soldiers opened
relentless
fire on
Dr. Raymond
, but
the doctor
didn’t respond to the multiple rounds
striking his body.

The doctor jerked his head away
, holding a
large chunk of
flesh between h
is teeth. Cpl. Andrews screamed as blood poured
out from his
gaping wound.

The soldiers continued
fearfully
firing
, riddling Dr. Raymond with fresh wounds.

The doctor
started to lean down again
–

One of bullets struck the side of Dr. Raymond’s head and erupted out the opposite side. He
jolt
ed and then collapsed on top of Cpl. Andrews, motionless
.

Cpl. Andrews rolled
the corpse off of him and scurried to his feet, covered with the doctor’s
coagula
ted blood. He pressed his palm tightly against the wound on his neck and grimaced
with pain.

The white-suited soldiers trembled
as the
y stared
at the bullet-riddled
corpse of Dr. Raymond. Then they
turned and
looked at their fallen brethren
, Patrick, who
had stopped convulsing and now
lay motionless in a pool of
b
lood courtesy of their
wounded
leader.

“That… he
bit me.
He
fucking bit me,” Cpl. Andrews finally said, keeping a
hand
over
his
wound
, still in disbelief and shock.
He reached into one of the cargo pockets on his white-suit,
pull
ed out a gauze bandage, and affixed it to the bite on his neck.

Cpl. Andrews walked over to Dr. Raymond’s corpse and fired six times
into what remained of its head.

Cpl. Andrews
turned towards Patrick, aimed,
briefly
hesitat
ed, and then fired two rounds at
his
forehead.

The rounds punched through the facemask and sunk into
Patrick’s head
, making his head lull
inside its prot
ective suit.

Lloyd’s heart was racing and fear had tied his stomach into knots. He knew that Andrews was right earlier. Whatever the virus was, he could not allow it to reach the surface.

“Advance,” Cpl. Andrews ordered.

The five remaining
white-suited
soldiers made
their way through the swinging
doors in the corner
of the lab, weapons ready

F
our doors
ran along the side of the hallway
and one doo
r sat at the far end. Bloody smears covered the hall along
bot
h sides. Another doctor inside a white-suit laid
face-up
in the middle of the hall in a pool of old blood. Bite marks riddled both arms of the white-suit
.

“What the
fuck,” Lloyd muttered quietly.

The
doctor
’s head j
olted up from the floor and his clouded blue
eyes glared at the group of soldiers
though the white-suit’s blood-speckled facemask.

“Contact!
Contact!
” Lloyd
shouted
.

The doctor abruptly sat up, snarling.

Lloyd fired a burst of
automatic
gunfire
along the center of the doctor
’s chest up
through the center of the suit’s
faceshield. The
plastic
faceshield shattered a
nd clouded with blood as the doctor
fell back onto the floor wi
th a meaty smack, arms flung up over his head.

One of the doors along
the side of the h
all flung open hard against the wall–

The soldiers quickly aimed at the door.

Another white-
suit with
a shattered faceshield darted
out into the hall and looked around wildly, hunched over. Like the other
s
,
his suit was caked with blood
. He looked towa
rds the soldiers and his
eyes suddenly became f
ocused. His
lower lip was missing and l
ooked gnawed off.

Lloyd let out an unintentional terrified gasp.

“Contac
t!” Lloyd shouted.

All five soldiers opened fire.

The white-suit gave a feral cry and ran towards the soldiers, not impeded by the gunfire ripping through his chest. He shoved Lloyd backwards.

Lloyd fell
onto his back
and his M16 slid
a
cross the hallway.

The white-suit pinned Lloyd down and vomited on his face.

Vomit beaded on Lloyd’s
facemask and rolled down the sides
.

Lloy
d brought his knees
u
p against the man's stomach and pushed–

T
he
white-suit
flung backwards in the center of the hall.

Lloyd quickly got back on
his feet
and wiped
the g
ore off of his facemask with a gloved hand
.

Undeterred, the white-suit snarled and stood–

Cpl. Andrews
aimed at the white-suit
's head
and fired.

The
man’s head shattered like a rotten pumpkin inside the white hazmat-suit. He
collapsed backwards
,
his face
a gory mash of pulp
and bone
.

Cpl. Andrews
picked up Lloyd's M16 and handed it
back
to him.

Lloyd straightened
up. H
is face
was
pale under
neath his blood streaked facemask. He
took the
M16
with trembling hands.

“Let’s sweep the remaining rooms, pla
nt the charges, and get the fuck
out of here,”
Cpl. Andrews
said quietly, holding his wounded neck. “Move up!”

The soldiers split off into the small four rooms.

Lloyd approached the
door at the far end
of the hall cautiously,
weapon
ready.
He reached for the silver doorknob slow
ly and tried to open it.

The door was locked from the inside.

Ll
oyd knocked on the door.

Nobody answer.

“Open up. Search and rescue,” Lloyd yelled
.

There was no reply.

Lloyd
fired a burst of gunfire at the knob. T
he
knob housing fell to the floor with a rattle. He slammed against the door
and it swung open into the room, knocking
over the
tal
l
computer server that had been propped
against it.

The
computer
room was small and v
ery cold. Tall stacks of triple-
redundant Novell servers were lined
up along the back of the room while s
maller towers and routers were neatly arranged down the center. Air conditioning vents were installed in
both
the floor
and
ce
iling; all of them were churned
out bitter cold air.

A white-suit was face-down in the center of the room
. Unlike
the other ones, it
wasn’t bloodied
and didn’t look compromised.

Lloyd’s mind went back to how the door was locked and barricaded.
This one managed to
bunker itself
in
, he thought. Still, he did
n’t take any chances
.
H
e knew what
his orders were and he didn’t want to get infected. He aimed
at the white-suit and stepped closer, weapon trembling.

“Hello?” Lloyd
asked as he approached
.

He stood above the face-down white-suit, weapon
aimed at the back of the head. Hesitantly, he kicked the side of the white-suit with his boot.

The white-suit didn’t move.

Lloyd kicked it
again, harder, but the white-suit still didn’t move. Taking a deep breath,
he
rol
led the white-suit over onto its
back
.

Beneath
the white-suit’s facem
ask, the man’s eyes were rolled-
up in their sockets and his skin was pulled tightly against his face. His skin was ashy and his lips were blue.

Lloyd’s eyes trailed down to the oxygen canister attached to the man’s hip; the needle was all
the way in the red.
He’d rather suffocate then take off his goddamn mask,
Lloyd thought.
What kind of
hell is
‘
PT-12
’
?
Without ano
ther moment of hesitation, he
fired two shots into the man’s forehead.
He knew that he couldn’t let the virus make it to the surface.

“
Repo
rt!” Cpl. Andrews shouted from
the hall
, hearing the gunshots
.

“Clear,” Lloyd said as he walked
over to the Novell servers.