Noah swallowed whole the large piece of flesh, enjoying the resulting burst of energy, and stood back as the doctor crumpled to the ground. The man’s neck was torn wide open, exposing the crushed hole of his pharynx. Blood torrented from the wound.
I did that, Noah thought apathetically.
He flinched suddenly as a dull throb of pain shot through his head out of nowhere. After experiencing absolutely no physical input for over twenty-four hours, the abrupt sensation akin to his brain being squeezed took him by unpleasant surprise. He gritted his teeth and backed away from the body.
“What’s happening now?” he muttered to himself.
He knew he needed to get into the room and out of sight before someone wandered into this stretch of hallway, but he was momentarily thrown off by the sudden migraine. He glanced down at his own body, wondering if he had been grievously injured without noticing. There was some blood on his shirt, but he was relatively sure the worst he had suffered was a nasty bruise to his forearm. Even that was already nearly healed, drawing on the energy he had just gained. The headache isn’t a physical injury. I wouldn’t be able to feel it if that were the case.
He took a moment to collect himself. It was a strange and subtle distinction, but the more he focused on it, the more he became convinced that the pain was mental rather than physical. He glanced back at the mangled body, and horror flared in him for the briefest of moments before his headache flared uncomfortably and the sentiment abruptly vanished.
His eyes widened, then squeezed shut. A different kind of horror washed over him. The sickness is messing with my head.
Not that he hadn’t already assumed that was the case, but now the interference was all too obvious. He opened his eyes and focused intently on the body, trying to overcome the invisible force affecting his mind. All he received for his efforts was a dull ache in his skull.
How come it didn’t hurt when I was actively eating him? Or Sophie’s dad last night, for that matter?
He thought about it and decided that whatever malignant influence was removing his ability to feel disgust at his own actions was probably in constant effect, and only generated pain as a reaction to excess stimuli. Ripping out a man’s throat must have qualified as such.
Growing slightly uncomfortable, his gaze focused on the pocket that the doctor had reached for before he died. Half wondering what it was the man had been trying to pull out and half trying to simply distract himself, Noah carefully reached in and withdrew what looked like a very small pistol. It was toylike, with a barrel far too slim for any bullet, and a round vessel sat at the rear of the weapon like that of a water gun. It had a small switch inset on the top, which Noah flicked without hesitation.
A hypodermic needle slid out from the pinprick hole in the muzzle.
Noah’s eyes widened slightly as he realized he was very likely holding a compact and close-range version of the blinding dart guns the soldiers on campus had been equipped with. He flicked the switch back, retracting the needle, and pocketed the weapon. It was nice to have a non-lethal method of attack, although he doubted he would be presented with a situation that would require its use. As terrifying as it was that his mind was being actively affected, the influence was doing its job very well. He couldn’t imagine himself choosing to prick someone with a needle when he could simply take a bite out of them instead.
He glanced down the corridor. It was still empty aside from the student at the far end watching him warily, who he chose to ignore. He figured it was about time to get out of the hallway.
He wondered for a moment if he had been subconsciously lingering out in the open in the hope that another uninfected worker would wander by, and then realized that the thought itself was another form of delay.
Grumbling to himself and wishing his headache would go away, he grabbed the doctor’s booted feet and began dragging him down the hall. The blood running from the man’s neck streaked the floor like paint from a brush. Noah eyed it unhappily. It pointed a line right to the door he planned to enter.
Let’s just get inside before I start worrying about the mess.
Noah might not have been able to directly feel the weight of the doctor’s body, but he could certainly perceive the drag it created on his movements, slowing his progress. He finally heaved it in front of the door and stepped back expectantly.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
The light on the door flicked green, to his great delight. Finally, he thought, pressing it open with his back and dragging the body inside after him. As he passed the threshold, all of the lights in the room turned on at once.
He glanced briefly around the space, taking in several large vats lined up along the side of the room and some tables with odd electrical apparatus scattered upon them. He was quite interested in taking a closer look, but he reasoned he should probably clean up the blood in the hallway before he took the time to properly investigate the space.
“Alright, time for you to help clean the mess you made,” he told the dead doctor, and got to work pulling his lab coat off of his body. It took some effort, but soon he held the partially bloodstained garment as a balled-up wad of fabric in his hands.
Leaving the doctor’s legs partially sticking out into the hallway as a doorstop to ensure he wouldn’t accidentally lock himself out, he stepped back into the corridor and began wiping the blood off the floor. The lab coat was surprisingly absorbent, although there were a few traces of blood that had seeped into the cracks in the floor tiles and stubbornly refused to be wiped out.
As he worked, the girl who had been standing at the end of the hallway drifted slowly closer to linger nervously nearby.
“What is it?” Noah snapped, glancing up. He realized he sounded more annoyed than he should’ve and gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry, this blood just isn’t coming out.”
She was also still wreaking havoc on his senses, and that paired with his fading headache and worry over his state of mind was putting him in a foul mood.
She stared down at the ground with her hands twisted anxiously together. “Why did you attack the doctor like that? By biting him?”
Noah’s eyes narrowed at the question, and he was quiet for a moment as he stepped back to admire his work. He decided it was good enough.
He turned back to the agitated student and would have sighed if he were able. “It was the easiest way to subdue him,” he muttered, then shrugged. “And I was hungry.”
She stared at him and bit her tongue, clearly wanting to say something. She just stood there silently, though, as the seconds passed.
“Look, if you want to have a conversation, we can do it in there,” Noah said impatiently, gesturing down the hall to where the pair of legs stuck out ominously. He swept past her and entered the room, carefully stepping over the body.
To his surprise, she actually followed him, though she cast a horrified look at the doctor as she crossed over him.
As soon as she was over the threshold, Noah pulled the body further into the room to let the door fully close.
“Alright, what is it?” he asked testily. He had half a mind to just kick her out, but he was afraid she would seek help from one of the other doctors in this wing of the building and end up selling out his position.
She shrunk against the wall. “Ever since this morning, I’ve felt like- like I wanted to-
“Eat people?” Noah said flatly. “Yeah, you’re a zombie. Or you were one. Not sure how effective the treatment Insight is handing out is, since it didn’t work on me.”
He walked over to the row of six identical vats. Each one was slightly taller than him and thick enough that two people standing on either side would have just barely been able to clasp hands. There was a sign warning that the vats were flammable storage, and a large wheel to access the contents. There was a smaller wheel beside it.
The student stared at him uncertainly. “A zombie? So that’s why you-”
“Yes.”
She blinked. “Huh. I thought I was going crazy.”
Noah shook his head. Oakridge’s decision to keep quiet about the symptoms of the infection was going to give half their students a personal crisis.
He grasped the large wheel on the first vat and heaved on it, slowly cranking it to the left. The round plug rotated around and around, slowly unscrewing before suddenly coming free in his hands.
Immediately, a dense black cloud expanded from the opening, blinding him for a moment before he stumbled back out of the worst of it.
He stood a few feet away and stared. The vat was full to the brim of dust. So this is where they’re storing it. He glanced nervously at the other five massive containers, wondering if they were all full.
The dust was still expanding rapidly from the hole he had opened, slowly darkening the room.
“I suppose I should close that back up,” he muttered to himself, and walked back over to it. He shoved the plug into the opening and screwed it back into place. As he worked, a strange jittery feeling came over him, like he had just downed a week’s worth of caffeine.
“I think something’s in this dust,” he said to the girl standing as far as she could from the cloud of dust. “You feeling that? Or do you think that’s just the normal effect of being in so much dust?”
“I think I just got infected again,” she said glumly.
“Oh. Sorry.”
She sighed. “Whatever. I can have the doctors suck it back out.” She glanced at the body in the corner. “Er, the remaining doctor can do it.”
Noah nodded distractedly, staring at his shaking hands. “I hope this isn’t going to have any negative health effects. I’m going to check if the other vats are also filled.”
She scowled. “Why?”
“I don’t know why Insight is storing the dust like this, but I don’t think there’s a single possible good reason. I want to see how badly we’re screwed.”