The Bloodless (8 page)

Justice and Jack looked at each other and had no idea who he was talking about. Their captors could see they didn’t have clue and just laughed. The skinny one planted his foot right into Justice’s gut and said, “You’d better watch your tone around Mendel, he’s not quite as forgiving as I am.” The two men then made their way out of the trailer, locking the door after they exited. Outside the van they came in roared to life but no sound of a driving off which lead Justice to assume they were staying there to keep watch.

“Do you have any idea what they were talking about?” Jack asked as he sat up off the moldy stained floor.

“None at all. Then again, I have no idea what’s going on in general. How did you get here?”

“They assaulted the compound, Justice,” Jack said, ignoring Justice’s question. He could see the pain in Jack’s eyes, that pain that only comes with losing everything you ever cared about. He was sure Jack could see it in his as well.

“Who assaulted the compound? Activists?”

“I don’t think so and if I had to take a guess I’d side more on the line of militants, possibly a well formed militia.”

“How the hell did they break through all of the defenses?” Justice asked beside himself. It didn’t make sense. Who the hell had the weaponry and man power to pull off what was thought to be impossible?

“By the sounds of things, sheer force of numbers. The guys who picked me up and brought me here were talking about it.”

“You mean the guys who dropped me off?”

“No, a couple other guys. Justice, I recognized one of them.”

“What? Who was it?” he asked, curiosity flowing from his face. Or perhaps that was blood, Justice could never tell.

“Robert Jericho,” he looked Justice dead in the eyes as if expecting some sort of reaction.

“Who?” he had no idea who Jack was talking about.

Jack let out a bemused sigh, an odd sound in a hopeless situation such as theirs. “You never were good with the names,” he said as he rubbed the sides of his face. “Subject 07212102-206.” Justice knew what he was referring to instantly and a slight ringing erupted in his ear as the gravity of the situation came collapsing down on his head. Jack finally got the reaction he was looking for, “Yeah exactly.”

“Are you suggesting…?”

“I don’t know, that’s the thing, it could just be a coincidence,” he said but didn’t look convinced that it was.

“Come on Jack, we’re scientists, we don’t believe in coincidences,” Justice reminded him. He knew without a doubt that GoD Laboratories was attacked by a large horde of reanimated humans. Jack realized it too and they were both forced into stunned silence. They remained that way for a long time, Justice doesn’t remember exactly how long anymore, he just remembers coming back to his wife and son and then Jack’s family. How Jack was holding it together was beyond him. It was all he could do to keep from breaking down but the thought of the visit from his wife burned hard in his mind.

It was near impossible for Justice to fathom that their own creations would come back and take over GoD. He said that they had no way of knowing something like that would or could happen. That’s what he said publicly at least, but he knew. All of GoD Labs’ employees knew like the US government of the early 21st century knew of 9/11 before it happened. Every report that was available about the amassing of a group of reanimated bodies came directly to Justice’s desk. There were no indications that they had plans of storming the labs and the whole compound.

Of course, Justice and his colleagues had no idea what those beings were actually capable of. All they knew was that they harnessed the ability to bring people back from the dead with fully functioning motor skills and brain function. Every law of nature imaginable was defied and they were damn proud of that. It seems as though their egos and sense of self-importance caused them to abandon rational thought. Those scientists were nestled securely under the blanket of an over-protected fortress. They paid little attention to the ramifications their experiments wrought on the outside world.

“What are they planning to do with us?” Justice asked after a very long pause. The sun had nearly risen now, but that had very little impact on the light cast into the trailer.

“Kill us,” Jack said idly.

“No,” Justice said, a foreign feeling bubbled inside his chest. He had no intentions of dying in this spot, bound and helpless.

“What?” Jack asked.

“I’m not dying, not here.” Justice got up to his feet without a clue as to what he was going to do. By then he was just acting on instinct and improvising every move.

“What are you going to do?”

Justice didn’t respond he just shook his head and looked around the trailer. He looked over at the door and couldn’t help but notice how flimsy it was. That’s when adrenaline started thinking for him. He reared back and planted a foot hard into the middle of the door but simply bounced off. He did put a dent in the door but it didn’t open. Justice got back to his feet and marched right back towards the door.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jack asked getting to his feet as well.

“Getting the hell outta here! Come on!” This time he kicked the door right next to the handle and it exploded open and stuck into the side of the trailer. An influx of foul air stampeded into the trailer causing both men to gag slightly. After Justice regained his composure he jumped out through the entrance. The doors to the van swung open and the men jumped out to head him off. He knew he had no chance against them even if he his hands weren’t bound so he took off in the opposite direction. Clearly they never imagined they would attempt to make a break for it as there were no other devices around to prevent their escape.

Justice didn’t get ten feet from them before he was tackled from behind by the fatter man who had a lot more speed than he would have ever thought. It hurt, bad. All the air was forced from his body and he struggled to breathe as the fat man smashed his face against the ground with his forearm.  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing,” he screamed in Justice’s ear. He got to his feet and a lungful of sweet breath rushed back into Justice’s body. He received a hard punch in the face for good measure as he was pulled to his feet.

“You think that was clever do you,” Justice heard the thin man yell as he came over to their location. He heard two pairs of feet shuffling across the ground. Justice looked around and saw that Jack had been dragged out alongside the thin man. “Stand him up.” Justice was lifted onto his feet. “Why would you try and run?” The thin man said angrily. “Where would you go? We’re out in the middle of fucking nowhere and you try to make a run for it? From two guys with guns and a truck? I thought you were supposed to be smart. Get over there with your friend.”

Jack was shoved over and lined up next to Justice. The captors then stood in front of their captives. The thin man removed his gun from its holster and looked it over to make sure it was loaded. “What you did was very dumb. Mendel wanted to meet you real bad too, but he also said if you did anything stupid to kill you on the spot. So,” he pointed the gun at Jack and discharged a round into his head. Jack fell to the ground, blood flowing from his skull.

Justice didn’t have time to process anything because in no time the gun was shoved against his forehead. His eyes squeezed shut involuntarily but nothing happened. He heard something that sounded like a quick but forceful breath rush by his ear. When he continued to live he slowly opened his eyes and saw the two men on the ground. The fat one had a large chunk of his head blown off and the thin one was crumpled over with his face in the ground. Justice looked around but didn’t find any sign of his apparent savior.

When no one made their presence known he quickly ran towards the van and got inside. He swung his bound hands under his feet and placed them on the steering wheel. Since the van was already running, Justice threw it into gear and got out of there as quickly as he could. There wasn’t any point in sticking around to see if someone showed up, not when more of those bastards were on their way. A sharp pang stabbed Justice in the chest as he remembered Jack dead because of his stupidity. He didn’t think it out, he didn’t have a plan. His ill-preparedness was the reason Jack died. Had he thought it through, maybe he’d still be alive.

From then on he had a clearer understanding of what he had to do. It wasn’t just about his family, these people obviously had to be stopped and he was the only person who could stop them. Well, maybe not the only person who knew how, but probably the only person idiotic enough to do anything about it. Obviously at that time Justice had no idea what he was really getting myself into, he wasn’t prepared for the long road ahead of him. What he was prepared for was the first step. He knew he couldn’t do it alone, he was going to need some help. However, things only got worse before they got any better.
 

*****

He drove the van in the opposite direction of Abiyah until it ran out of gas, then he was forced to walk to wherever he had to go. He hadn’t seen any sign of civilization for a long time but he knew if he was going to survive he would have to find it. He had driven far enough to get out of The Cloud’s shadow and the sight of the sun was somewhat of a tonic for him and gave him strength. Enough strength to keep walking until what appeared to be a remote suburban development appeared on the horizon.

The houses in this neighborhood were very structured and planned, especially the layout as they were all white and ordered in a tight line. The front row were town houses, the rest regular single family homes. It was a large neighborhood and it looked to be a touch more affluent than most in that area.

People were all over the place. Some were running aimlessly, trying to find a lost loved one, or just attempting to get out of town as quickly as possible. Law enforcement officers were present and were attempting to keep everyone calm as they carried out their obvious evacuation orders. How much do they know, he thought to himself as he approached the first row of houses. He could feel the tension bully its way through the air, people were scared.

Justice watched as officers arrested people who had become too unruly and were inciting more panic around them. They were clearly given loose rules as how to treat these people and from what he saw it was fairly obvious that some form of martial law had been implemented. Officers were quick to use force. One young, dark haired girl ran from the cops who were trying to keep her from screaming hysterically that everyone was going to die. She ran up to a house and started banging on the door. Soon a large, muscular bald man threw open the door and didn’t even hesitate as he buried a twelve gauge slug in her chest.

The man was quickly taken down by an armada of Tasers and stun guns. Another loud scream tore through the neighborhood and everyone looked around. The Cloud was on the move again and rapidly approaching. Justice’s heart sank and he nearly gave up on the spot under the crushing weight of everything that he had gone through at that point. But he knew stopping wasn’t an option, he couldn’t let any more people down. He waited until the coast was clear and hurried into the now unoccupied home and locked the door behind him. He wandered into one of the upstairs bed rooms and collapsed onto what must’ve been the most comfortable bed he had ever been on in his entire life. Soon he passed out despite the fact The Cloud was bearing down.

He woke later, not due to any massive sounds, but to the lack thereof. He strained his ears for anything, but instead his ears were bombarded by a chilling silence. A strong sense of foreboding corrupted the air around him; silence in these situations was never a good thing.

The sun was beginning to set and burning beams or red and orange sunlight busted through the slotted blinds covering the windows. The walls appeared to be on fire. That’s when a loud *BANG* sounded from the front of the house. Justice sprang from the bed and started to frantically search the room to find any sort of weapon. He figured since the owner of the house had that shotgun there must be more firepower somewhere in the house. Sure enough he found a silver gun case stashed away under the bed. He opened it to find a revolver and a very well maintained custom Desert Eagle.

Up to that point in his life, he had only ever operated a firearm once before but in a very controlled environment. Luckily for Justice it was a model very similar to the Desert Eagle he had in front of him. He probably took too much time examining the gun because before he knew it he was attacked from behind, the guns flew from his hands. He was hit a couple times in the head but he fought back and eventually rolled on to his back to face his attacker. The sight was unnerving; the thing attacking him was a very normal looking teenaged boy. There were no discernible disfigurements about it, the only odd characteristic he noticed was an orange glow in its listless eyes and that it smelled just awful. Determined to kill this thing he fought hard and eventually extracted himself from underneath it and even managed to knock it down. He picked up the guns and ran from the room.

Justice made his way downstairs and hid foolishly in a hallway closet. He heard the upstairs floor gently creak, as if the thing was moving slowly to give itself enough time to think of what to do next. He was like a sitting duck. All it had to do was throw the closet door open and there would be no chance of raising either gun let alone get a shot off to defend himself. The only option he had left was to go face it and attempt to kill it that way. Like a man kills something. Face to face.