RAGE (Descendants Saga (Crisis Sequence One)) (14 page)

Clearly
, the infected are pushed by their new instinct to attack with as much voracity even when they only do so to infect. They are driven with an insatiable rage and desire to spread the plague that ravages their bodies. They are not being dissolved by this disease, but are being transformed into something new.

The attacks com
e very fast now. All of the infected victims from the hospital have killed multiple times already. They just keep moving.

“So fast,”
Vladimir whispers to himself.

He watches as some of the guards attempt to get off shots from their pistols. The infected slam them hard anyway and keep moving. One or two take hits, but they don’t go down. More precision is required to end these beasts, and one of the first things lost in a panic is the focus that’s required for a situation like this.

One of the guards manages to activate an alarm. Vladimir searches the console for a way to deactivate it, but sees nothing obvious. Still, the alarm will only exacerbate the panic in the facility.

His eyes catch a flash of light from the monitor showing him the infirmary. When he looks at it, the picture is black. The power to
his computer monitor is still on, indicated by a green light.

Vladimir
moves the mouse to show him the feed outside the infirmary. A guard lies dead outside the open door. He catches a glimpse of the creature as it leaps through into the now darkened room.

“Someone turned the lights out,”
Vladimir notes.

The door to the infirmary closes on its hydraulic arm.
Vladimir right clicks the mouse and moves the cursor to thermal imaging. The blackened image of the infirmary changes to one showing various heat sources in the room.

The room is cold except for a few minor sources that are clearly electronic in nature, and four human signatures. One blends for a moment as the creature attacks someone inside.
Vladimir has no way to know who the victim is. He can only hope it’s not the boy, but it will only be a matter of time. He must act now and hope it’s not too late.

Sig Sauers in hand
, he stands. A face smashes into the Plexiglas on the back side of the control center. Vladimir’s gaze shoots to the zombie attacking unsuccessfully. He kicks the door open, leading into the corridor. The zombie rounds the control center wall, coming for him.

Vladimir
raises a pistol and allows the creature to get within striking distance. He fires a shot through its forehead and steps around the body as it falls to the tile floor, leaving bloody smears from its recent kills and its own head wound. It stays down.

He walks down the nearest corridor, finding a terrified group of five employees running toward him. Two of them are wounded, but they aren’t rabid. The other three appear to have only gotten blood and filth on them fighting off the infected creature now coming around the corner after them.

When they see him raise his Sig Sauers, they part in the hall, giving him an easy shot. Vladimir kills the infected man before he can attack the group again. They turn to him with glad expressions and thanks on their lips. The words are hardly out before the twin Sig Sauers fire off five more rounds. He leaves the dead employees in the hall behind him, making his way cautiously toward the infirmary.

Vladimir
encounters more employees than guards, or infected people. None of them make it past him alive. He exchanges magazines in his Sig Sauers and moves on. If the boy is bitten, he can still restrain him and get him back to Ivanovich’s science team. He wonders about the boy’s ability to become infected, especially if he is said to be the source carrier.

By his estimate, the infected victims from the hospital have been loose for almost ten minutes. At the rate at which they move and attack, these eight will soon eliminate most of the guards and employees that are in the open areas. There
is one group of scientists inside a biohazard lab.

Vladimir
sealed them in from the control center. They are forced to remain inside connected to the air hoses feeding oxygen to their environmental suits. The trapped scientists will not realize what is happening out in the rest of complex until it is too late.

In less than five minutes,
Vladimir stands before the front entrance to the infirmary where the boy was seen on his control center monitor. The body of the guard still lies on the floor in front of the door. As the assassin approaches, he notices the man is dead already.

The lights are on in the infirmary again.
Vladimir scans the hall behind him and then opens the door and enters. He locked the doors, but the guard was obviously foolish enough to unlock this one and go outside. His gun is missing. This stupidity cost him his life.

Inside,
Vladimir is surprised by the scene he finds. Another guard lies dead on the floor, his throat torn open by an infected person also lying dead on the floor. A swathe of white powder from a nearby fire extinguisher covers part of the floor and the battered, bloody face of the zombie. A clean shot to the head ended the attack.

Upon closer inspection,
Vladimir finds this guard’s gun is also missing. Evidently, he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger for the kill shot on this zombie. He searches quickly around the infirmary room, but the woman and the boy are not present. One of them must have shot the creature, and they are now both armed.

Vladimir
follows powdery footprints that must be the boy’s, since he was dressed only in a gown on camera five minutes ago. They lead him out the rear door of the infirmary and across the hall to a small locker room. The prints end inside. He must have dressed and put shoes on as well.

The assassin comes out again, checking the hall in both directions. One way appears to be a dead end. The other leads around to the left. He follows this route
, leading him back toward the core of the complex.

Several turns lead him to a group of three infected individuals
, all shot recently. Vladimir feels the excessive heat rising off of their bodies. Yet, they are dead. Each has a hole in their head, although one of them has a shoulder wound also.

Vladimir
grins. These two have already done better in protecting themselves than the rest of the staff. Still, with the two he killed personally, these three plus the one in the lab adds up to six of the original eight. There are only two zombies still roaming the corridors of the complex, unless someone has managed to kill them by now.

The assassin moves
down a longer corridor lined with windows that view the large cafeteria. He finds a group of wounded employees with a few bloody, beaten guards trying to make some sense of the situation and restore a little order. He moves quickly, leaving them.

If any of them spot him, it won’t matter. Coming after him will only get them killed. Besides, if they’re attempting to hunker down in the cafeteria and lock themselves in, the infected will only throw themselves through these glass windows and come for them. The cafeteria seems an appropriate place for such a buffet to occur.

From here, the corridor branches in several directions. Vladimir examines his options, but nothing seems particularly appealing. He decides to follow the route that will have him circle back toward the entrance. This is the only way out of the Tombs. He’ll probably find survivors there, but he may also find the boy with the woman from the infirmary.

Particular Peculiarities

Living to fight another day has a nice ring to it, as long as you actually live to fight that other day—Jonathan Parks

Just as Holly promised, a single elevator waits, giving access to another level down and the super secret area of the facility known as Sector Four. We make it without further incident, though we do see a few employees running down a hallway further along. Ducking inside, Holly hits the button and down we go.

When the elevator doors open again
, we are in a different place. A lone corridor with white tiles and a single blue line on the floor runs from the elevator for about fifty yards. At the end, the hall bisects.

“You won’t need your gun down here,” Holly says, depressing the safety and pushing it into the back of her trousers underneath her lab coat.

I follow her advice, putting my Glock on safety. I don’t have pants, so I opt for simply carrying the weapon. We begin walking. Thirty yards down, large windows allow us to see inside a gymnasium. The space includes what appears to be an elaborate obstacle course. It looks fun but difficult.

A young man, probably close to my age, somersaults along a wooden balance beam. He leaps from the beam to catch hold of
a set of Olympic style rings. He then performs several maneuvers and dismounts with a twisting flourish.

“Wow,” I mutter.

“That’s Garth Manes,” Holly informs me. “Try not to be offended by him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s a bit egocentric,” she explains. “He’s been here since he was ten years old. He’s eighteen now. The first one in the program and the oldest. He acts like he owns the place, or at least Sector Four.”

“Sounds a lot like Tom Kennedy,” I reply.

“That explains a lot,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“Try not to get into any fights,” Holly says with a grin.

“Exactly how many
program
participants
are there, anyway?”

“There are exactly two,” she says to my surprise. “You would have been number three.”

“Oh, I guess I was expecting—”

“More? No. The kind of gift you each have is rare. They’ve been studying for years down here and we still don’t fully comprehend the manifestation
s.”

“
They aren’t carriers for this virus like I am?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “We’ve never seen anything that’s really like it, either. It might seem at first to be something like rabies.
But that disease attacks the brain and almost always kills the patient within a few days of becoming symptomatic.”

“But they look terrible, almost like they’re dead
, or dying,” I reply.

As we walk down the hall, Garth mak
es his way toward the gymnasium door. He wears very short dark hair in a spiked style. He has the lithe, muscular physique of a gymnast.

“Although they may appear ghastly, they are not dying,” Holly explains. “If anything
, they’re growing stronger and faster. Their mental capacity
seems
diminished also, but it’s more like a switch thrown. The brain isn’t under attack so much as renovation.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” she asks. “I still don’t understand it, and I have a doctorate. This is like drawing a person’s face while looking at them through darkly tinted windows. It’s very frustrating.”

We reach the gymnasium entrance. Garth stand
s just inside at a table with a beverage dispenser. He drinks a cup of orange juice while we watch.

When
Garth finishes, he tosses the cup over his shoulder without looking at the trashcan. It drops in perfectly. He then regards me with a sardonic grin.

“Who’s the newbie, sweetheart?” Garth asks Holly.

I hold out my hand before she can answer. “Jonathan Parks,” I say. “Good to meet you, Garth.”

His eyes don’t look down at the weapon in my other hand, but I can tell he knows it’s there. He doesn’t shake my hand, instead leaving it hang
ing there. I lower it, grinning at him. I have no intention of Kowtowing to this person.

That sort of reaction will only get me more of the same. I can already tell what kind of person Garth is. I have a chance to earn his grudging respect, but he may
, or may not ever like me. Still, if I gain his respect, that’s a great deal.

Garth turns to Holly. “What’s this all about, love?” he says. “Since when do program participants come in here packing heat?”

“There’s been an outbreak in the Tombs,” she says. “Jonathan insisted we get down here and evacuate you and Cassie.”

“Did he now?”

I return the glare Garth gives me, but I add a slight nod.

“And why would you do that?” he asks.

“I hear we have something in common,” I say, “but there’s no time to banter this around.”

“Right,” Holly interjects. “A viral outbreak has caused eight persons in custody within the Biohazard Containment block to become ravening monsters. They’ve become animalistic and will attack on sight. Many people in the lab are likely dead
, or infected already.”

“Can they get down here?” Garth asks, suddenly turning serious.

“No,” Holly replies, “but it won’t matter. SIS will cleanse the entire facility with a containment breach of this magnitude. They can’t afford for something like this to get out among the general population.”

Garth grows more anxious now. “Well, when does that happen? How long do we have?”

“Protocol dictates the head of SIS be notified of any incident. Depending on our response, or lack of response, they decide how to proceed. However, given the terrible nature of this contagion, they won’t risk the city for the few of us who are left down here.”

“Especially not when anyone coming out would be seen as a risk to the city,” I offer. “We’re probably lucky they haven’t destroyed the place already.”

“They might try to reach us, in which case, the control center would be the place to go,” Holly explains.

“But they can see everything already, can’t they?” Garth asks.

Holly nods. “But it’s our only chance. Once they lockdown the facility, no one will be able to get out of here. None of the pass codes or badges will even work then.”

“That will mean going back through the infected, though,” I interject.

“What else can we do?” Holly asks. “We’ve got to get Cassie and go.”

Garth turns, walking at speed down the hall. At the other end of the gymnasium there is a smaller alcove. I can already smell the chlorine before we walk inside. A pool about twice as big as one you might find at a hotel stretches out before us.

A young girl sits on a bench dressed in a full length black and pink wetsuit and sneakers. She is testing what appears to be a scuba tank. Her curly, blonde hair hangs across her brow and down over her shoulders.

Garth calls Cassie’s name.

When she looks up at us, recognition shows in her expression as her eyes wander from Garth to Holly. However, when she looks at me, puzzlement dawns. I have no idea what face I must be making at this point, but I feel stricken when I lay my eyes on her.

She’s young and, in my estimation, absolutely beautiful. I recognize I’ve encountered beautiful people before, many times in fact. However, I’ve never seen in them what I see in Cassie. It’s as though I’m viewing her soul, and I can’t tell anymore if I’m breathing.

“There’s danger up top in the Tombs,” Garth tells her as she stands to greet us. “A viral outbreak of some kind turning people into monsters or something. We have to get out of here fast.”

Cassie starts to laugh, as though she’s getting pranked. However, when she sees the serious expressions all around and remembers the kinds of research done up above, she relents. “Are you all serious?” her eyes find the gun in my hand. “Who is this?” she asks Holly cautiously.

“This is Jonathan Parks,” Holly says. “Jonathan, this is Cassie Monroe.”

I start to smile and offer her my hand, but Garth breaks in. “He’s a newbie for the program,” he shouts, growing agitated. “We’re all about to die and you want to play meet and greet?
Time to go, lover boy.”

I blush.

“But won’t we have to go through the Tombs to get to the outside?” Cassie asks.

“It’s the best we can do,” Holly says, removing the gun from her trousers. “Is there anyone else down here right now?”

“Not this time of day,” Garth replies. “They all go up for lunch and to smoke.”

“Then it’s too late for them,” I say.

“You really are serious?” Cassie asks me.

I nod, holding up my Glock. “We wouldn’t have these, if we weren’t. Some people have already been killed. These things are like super fast zombies
, or something. We’ll have to be careful.”

Garth turns
, heading for the elevator corridor. He pauses along the way, stepping into the gym for a moment where a few lockers are mounted to the wall. He opens one and pulls out a katana sword.

“I’m not going up there unarmed,” he says.

Nobody questions him as he returns to the corridor and walks with our group toward the elevator at the end of the hall. I can’t help but wonder if he is actually able to use that thing. Having been involved with martial arts myself, I’m more than a little envious. However, the Israeli fighting style I learned didn’t focus upon melee weapons like swords. It was more practical, how to disarm a person wielding a knife, or pipe, even a gun and end the fight as quickly as possible.

I decide not to ask him. He would probably only reply with a rude comment anyway
, and I don’t want to get into it with him, certainly not with Cassie around. I’m not sure why that matters to me, but it does.

We reach the end of the hall, waiting for the
elevator. I glance at Garth, impatient with his katana in hand. I’m reminded of an Indiana Jones flick. Gun beats sword every time.

My gaze wanders toward Cassie. Her eyes come up and catch me looking at her. Immediately, I look back toward the elevator.

The doors open and I’m itching near the trigger of my gun, half expecting one of the infected to leap out at us. The elevator is empty. I notice Holly relax also. She must have been thinking the same thing.

We all step inside and the doors close behind us.

“We’ll have to be extremely careful,” Holly says. “I can lead us toward the control center. If we can get them to listen up in SIS, then maybe they’ll postpone the cleansing.”

Garth straps his katana scabbard across his back, leaving the sword inside for now. The elevator slows as we ascend to the level of the Tombs laboratory. Our ride only lasts about fifteen seconds. Just before the doors open, I experience a moment of truth kind of feeling. My gun is held ready with the safety off. Still, I keep my trigger finger outside the guard as Holly instructed me.
The doors part in front of us.