Survival of the smartest had something to do with the quality of human brains. I am not smart, I am just a lab assistant. The scientists that I work with keep talking about artificial selection. What they mean is that our lab manufactures new cold viruses and vaccines for them. It is completely legal to do so, for research purposes.
The scientists I work with do talk all day of malthusian politics and the fitness of intellect. Smart people do not trust the government. The government tells people that they have to get a free vaccine for a new cold virus. Only people who trust the government do what they are told. I guess that means I am not smart.
It is my job to handle test subjects, as just a lab assistant. We pay them four thousand dollars in cash to spend four days in our lab, quarantined. Most of them are students, some of them are homeless. All of them are desperate for the cash. Since we are funded by government research grants, technically they are being paid by the taxpayers.
On the evening of the incident I was washing my hands at the door when I heard a loud thump noise coming from the hall where the quarantine cells are. I had just finished checking on all three of our current test subjects. Our quarantine area had enough cells for eight.
I guessed it was test subject two, because he wasn't doing very well. I rushed to his cell to visually check on him and found him face down in his own vomit. His remote vitals indicated he was dead. I had to intercom from the elevators for help.
Two scientists, Dr. Felicity and Dr. Safron responded as well as Mike, our security guy. "Our test subject two seems to be dead." I told them.
Dr. Safron suited up and went into the quarantine cell to check the vitals. He declared the time of death for two minutes earlier. "Banks, you go to the office and notify this person's emergency contact. This body must be examined and destroyed in the biohazard operating room."
"We do all that here?" I asked. I hadn't worked there long enough to have known there was a biohazard operating room or that we incinerated dead bodies. Nobody had ever died before.
I went up to the office and found the file on our current test subject two and then got on the office's phone to leave a message with their emergency contact, explaining that so-and-so accidentally died. We had a solid waver that allowed us to continue with research even if the subject somehow died. We could also dispose of the body, I read, by incineration.
I went back down to make sure my other test subjects were okay, since one of them had died. They were understandably distressed and it was my job to make them feel reassured and calm. How I was going to do that, I wasn't sure. I couldn't lie to them and tell them they had received a different cocktail. All I could do was superficially promise them that test subject two had died of natural causes and that they would be fine.
"How do you know it was natural causes? They said they are taking the body for some kind of autopsy." Our test subject three sounded scared.
"Because nothing we gave you is dangerous. It just a little cold virus and a vaccine. You will be fine." I explained as reassuringly and calmly as I could.
While I was talking to them the quarantine cell with the dead body in it was being entered by Dr. Safron and Dr. Felicity. Both scientists were wearing biocontainment suits and they started to load the body into a body bag which they could seal up just for the trip down the hall to the biohazard operating room. I noted that the off limits area should have made me guess, since I worked in the quarantine.
Dr. Safron was saying to Dr. Felicity that the vitals still showed that test subject two was quite dead. That didn't seem to matter because he was sitting back up while they argued. Wide eyed with surprise they stared at him through their biohazard suits. I watched all of this, completely stunned.
His face looked like something out of a bad horror movie makeup department. If I were watching my life as a movie, I would say he was the least realistic zombie I had ever seen. His eyes were tired and droopy and his flaky skin had some vomit on it. He could just be someone who was too drunk at a party and nobody would realize he was undead.
Dr. Safron used his fingers to check the man's neck for a pulse. The zombie had no pulse and he drew back in sudden revulsion. His quick movement triggered something and the zombie turned its face around to look at him. Then it turned its body around and faced him, clambering to its feet with difficulty. The corpse began to ambulate relentlessly toward Dr. Safron who began to yell for help.
The former test subject two had bitten a large chunk out of Dr. Safron's flailing defenses and blood was spurting freely from the wound all over the walls, floor and zombie. During the attack there were accompanying screams of terror. The other test subjects were panicked in their quarantine cells.
Dr. Felicity had hidden partly between the bed in the cell and the wall. I was still standing in the hall with Mike, the security guard. Test subject one recalled that they were not actually locked in their cells and tried to escape. When he had reached the door to the elevators he was stopped by the last containment door which actually was locked, due to procedure of removing a body from quarantine.
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The zombie tore into Dr. Safron's biohazard suit and began biting his face and neck as he fainted. Then it stood up over him and started to turn around. Mike had his gun in his hand, finally. He was telling the zombie to stop approaching and then he started to shoot it in the torso.
The loud gunshots made my ears ring so that I barely heard the remaining test subject telling him to shoot for the head. Instead he dropped his gun and ran for the exit , after he had shot the zombie numerous times. Test subject three came out of her quarantine cell and went for the gun. When it clicked empty she threw it at the zombie.
It followed her as she also went for the exit. We were locked down due to the containment breach when the two quarantine cells were opened during the removal procedure. It was automatic and required Dr. Safron's authorization or a monitoring administrator to open. I looked up at the security cameras that nobody was watching, or they would open the door remotely.
I went to Dr. Safron's bleeding remains and tried to remove the keycard from his labcoat. When I had it in my hands his eyes opened. At first I thought he was just awake but then I saw the same blank, hungry stare from the zombie. I backed away slowly.
As Dr. Safron's zombie began to rise Dr. Felicity screamed in anguished terror and rejection of the nightmare. With a sharp jerk of its head it turned its attention from me and attacked her. I wanted to help her, but I was too scared. Instead, when I realized it was eating her alive and she was done for, I closed them in the quarantine cell together. Her screams continued as it bit pieces off of her and I turned my back on the awfulness.
I took the key card towards the elevators, following the trail of blood left by the dripping zombie. I was trembling and terrified and moving very slowly. When I got there, the zombie had knocked out the test subject three and was struggling with the two men. It bit into the face of the test subject one guy and he let go, hollering in pain and pulling away, losing a piece of his face. There was so much blood that I couldn't tell who was bitten or not.
The zombie slipped in the blood and fell backwards. Once it was on the ground, Mike stomped on its head over and over, harder and harder, until he had cracked open its skull and killed it. He looked up at me and I hid the keycard I had.
He told me that we needed to escape. I pointed out that all of them were bitten. He shook his head, denying that he was bit, despite the teeth marks on his jaw and hand.
I realized that if I let them out and we all escaped that we would unleash zombies outside the quarantine. Mike came at me and in his hysteria I could not be sure he wasn't a zombie. I hid the key on myself and tried to escape from him into the off limits area, the biohazard operating room. Before I could shut the door on it, the surprisingly fast moving Mike zombie had forced its way in, breaking the door's locking mechanism in the process.
Mike tackled me and manhandled me, wrestling me back to the ground and trying to search me. He knew I had the key. I fought back and he started to punch me in my face and head. I fell limp from the blows, almost getting knocked out. Mike got on top of me and pinned me down. He started to strangle me, instead of biting me, demanding I help him escape.
My hands were over his but I couldn't remove his grip. He stiffened up and slumped onto me. I laid there under him, his hands still on my throat in a vice-like death grip. I could barely breathe.
Momentarily he became reanimated and resumed choking me, this time as a zombie. I knew it would bite me and I had to get away from it before it could. With little oxygen to my brain and operating in pure survival mode I bit off one of his thumbs. It took all the strength in my jaw to sever the thumb at the joint. With only one hand gripping my neck I was able to pry it off and topple the zombie off of me.
As I tried to get away the Mike zombie grabbed my ankle. I was gasping for air but shouted in fright anyway, a kind of empty coughing shout. I had to pull myself free, dragging the corpse halfway to the prepared incinerator. When the zombie climbed up to corner me I looked around for anything to use as a weapon. A thick metal tray covered in autopsy instruments provided a whole arsenal.
I kept picking up different tools and hurling them at the approaching zombie. When it was near me it had some sharp implements stuck into its flesh but they didn't even slow it down. I lifted the tray and bashed it in the head. It staggered back towards the incinerator.
I hit it with the tray again and again to repulse its ravenous jaw clacking. I opened the incinerator and its drawer came out and I managed to knock it backwards onto the drawer. While it tried to get up I grabbed its kicking legs and forced it in, head first. Once it was inside I trapped it in there.
I had no idea how to make the gas turn on. There were just pilot lights on either side. Its cloths caught fire and it started burning, filling the incinerator with smoke. There were instructions on the control box which I had to make myself read and comprehend, despite the excitement and horror I felt.
After I had calmed down enough to grasp the details I was able to incinerate the Mike zombie. He had left an awful taste in my mouth and his blood was on my chin and lab coat. I worried for a minute that I might turn into a zombie because I had bitten him.
I emerged from the back room to the quarantine hall and looked around at the remaining zombies. The two doctors were trapped in cell two while the two test subject zombies had arisen and now shambled towards me where I stood. I retreated back into the operating room and tried to barricade the door. I pushed everything in the room against the door and tried to hold it shut.
There wasn't enough stuff to keep them out forever. They pushed tirelessly until they were coming in. While they were crawling awkwardly through the debris filled entrance I was able to pick them both off by smashing their heads with the tray.
Then I sat down and just waited. I was sure I was going to turn into a zombie, but I never did. I was quarantined in the same lab I had held test subjects in. After a week I was allowed to leave.
I had watched the cleanup process and I noted how perfectly sterile everything was. New doctors were hired and new test subjects too. I turned in my resignation and stared blankly at the new doctors and test subjects as I walked out the building after quitting my job.