Chapter 35: The Shape of Things to Come
Atticus woke up what could have been minutes or hours later. There were no windows, just one ceiling light illuminating the lab room. Atticus was tied down to a metal slab at its center. In his head he heard Rebecca screaming, but in reality there was nothing but silence. He threw himself around trying to squirm free from his restraints. He had to save her. There was no time to even begin thinking about what the hell had just happened and how he got here from a cave on an island. If he had to break his wrist to get free he would. He had not seen one single face or suit and the possibilities were endless on who they could be and what they were doing to Rebecca right now.
There was nothing he could do to break free. Atticus was stuck there. He would have to wait for someone to engage him for an opportunity to escape. He settled down and finally realized he had all the time in the world to wonder how he got here.
Rebecca was carried out of the cave and into the dark night. Around tight corners and risky trenches surrounding the cave, they slipped underneath the island. The soldiers carried her into what looked like laboratory rooms. They tied her down on a reclined operating chair in a room connected to two other rooms on both sides by windowed walls.
In the room to the right of her she could see Charlie on an operating table. The room to the left of her was very dark, isolated, but she could still see a figure on an operating table just like Charlie. Was it Atticus? Two military doctors brought Jackson in. The dog was still alive. Rebecca’s joy lasted for about two seconds before realizing the dog was visibly fatally wounded. Its ribs weren’t just broken but ruptured.
They placed the dog on the ground and injected it with a serum-gun. The windows were soundproof, but Rebecca could still tell Charlie was screaming. They pointed the needle at him, and he stopped. The other one loosened Charlie’s restraints and thsen they both left the room, locking him inside with an infected Jackson.
Somewhere else…
Finally, someone paid a visit to Atticus. In all his time left on this wretched rock called Earth, Atticus would never wish to be stuck in the same room as the person now standing before him. The dark figure in the back of his mind that he had been running from since the start.
“Did you really think you could just run away?”
“When the world goes to shit and the people you rely on dessert you. Iit forces you to see things differently. I had three projects with the potential to save the world. You gave me one, and took one away from me, took two if you count Doctor Chase, I presume the reason he is not with you is because he is dead.”
“What are you talking about?”
“YOU STOLE MY VESSEL!” General Saarsgard accused Atticus.
“The Warbird?”
“It could have taken me off this rock, above this wicked plague. You robbed me of that. You made me desperate, and in my desperation I made this base. After Project Clean Sweep the undead were twice as deadly. The epidemic had the upper hand. I gathered as many resources as-“
“People. You mean people.” Atticus interrupted.
“I did everything I could to ensure the survival of the human race. You brought me patient zero. That is where I would begin once security was locked down.”
“And what have you discovered besides how to effectively hide from the dying world?”
“This disease is regenerative, Atticus. It affects every host differently. Most it kills. But some it doesn’t.”
“There are people who are immune?”
“Not just people. Most canines don’t turn, most animals are safe. Which means this is man-made.”
Atticus smiled and let his head rest. Closing his eyes in a temporary act of resignation. “The world will go on after we are gone.”
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“We are not going anywhere, not even when we’re all dead.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Soon two scientists are going to come in here with a live contaminant and infect you. You will die and turn and be put down. After that you will be nothing more than a statistic. As desperate and cold-hearted as your actions have made me, I am not too cruel to provide brief satisfaction to a departing comrade, even a deserter. You took from me my inventor, but you left me his tools. One day I will figure them out and right the wrongs Patient Zero has caused. I will save humanity and all you will have done is made your mark on a spreadsheet. Goodbye, Captain Roth.”
General Saarsgard left Atticus to await his fate.
Rebecca watched in horror as the scene played out. Charlie tried furiously to get lose and finish what he started on Jackson before whatever they did to the dog took effect. Rebecca could tell when Jackson stopped breathing. It was subtle at first, but all too familiar for her. In no time the once docile loyal companion was now a ravenous, blood-craving beast, standing on its four paws.
Charlie finally got free and picked up a beaker to protect himself. On Jackson’s first charge Charlie broke the glass over the hound’s head. Jackson stopped to lick his wounds as the blood and broken glass streamed into his mouth. The red bled into the dog’s dead eyes as it bit into Charlie and brought him down. First his arm and then right into his gut.
Jackson growled and took a chunk out of the old man. He tried pushing the dog away while screaming for help that was not there. The zombie dog dug further into him. Charlie spat blood out of his mouth, writhing in pain. Undead Jackson pulled a chunk of bone out of the squirming man. He crunched on his rib next to him like a normal dog with a bone as the old man died. Rebecca never looked away.
Was this karma in the new twisted world?
Two soldiers equipped with triage gear and full hazmat suits entered the room, immediately putting the dog down with their silenced rifles. Charlie rose to his feet as one of the undead, but since his entrails were littering the floor he toppled over like an upside-down triangle and snapped his spine, his body now two lumps on the ground. Rebecca thought she saw the two soldiers laughing under all their gear. Something was definitely wrong with this military installation.
The undead old man was put down right next to the dog and scientists entered the room to conduct autopsies. They were taking notes and treating Rebecca’s lost companions like lab rats. Rebecca prayed for Atticus to come save her. She feared he was in the same position as her, strapped down naked on an operating table with no chance at escape.
There was a dark figure lurking in the shadows. Rebecca caught glimpses of him. In this world you think you can escape your lives by the threatening climate but the shape of things to come is just like the new unnatural world, and everything comes back to get you in the end. Rebecca was rolled out of her room on the table and brought to the dark room next door.
In the hallway, she had a chance to see the scale of the base. There were doors lining the hallway down each way. It seemed like it went on for miles. When they got to the neighboring room the curtain was pulled. Its inhabitant revealed. The lights turned on and Rebecca screamed in absolute shock and horror.
“No,” Rebecca turned away.
“It can’t be!” She looked back.
“PLEASE NO!”
How could he still be alive?
“Ansem?”
The zombie next to her was none other then patient zero and Rebecca’s late husband, Ansem Weathers. This was a jolt to Rebecca’s system. She was staring back at her old life, now face to face with the summation of everything she had left behind. He did not moan, he did not gargle. He merely stared at her, almost as awe-struck as she was.
Just about the same procedure as Charlie and Jackson commenced after that. The doctors loosened Rebecca’s restraints and right before they went to leave they released Ansem. But there was this brief moment that Rebecca swear lasted a lifetime for her.
His blood-red pupils staring back at her with something inside of it she had never seen before, not from a zombie’s eye. Ansem did not go for her, instead, he lunged onto the doctors heading for the door, immediately digging into their necks with his teeth and popping their heads off. The door was caught open, and Ansem slipped into the hallway of the base. Rebecca peeled at the strap holding her left hand down. She writhed and contorted herself to get out of it. This was her shot. This was her opportunity. Her last chance to escape before things got even worse.
Suddenly an alarm sounded, and the lights turned off. Red warning flashes came on to reveal a figure in the doorway. “Atticus!” Rebecca yelled for him. The figure stepped forward. Blood from its mouth dripped onto the floor in the flashing red light. It was not Atticus.
It was her late husband, back to finish what he had started all those months ago. Ansem stepped forward slowly and Rebecca cried out for her life, still trying to break free from the table. The strap snapped and she fell to the floor, slipping her bare heel on the blood-covered tiles.
She dropped into the contaminated blood and stumbled to keep her head from getting covered. This was it. The probability of her getting infected, between the blood on the floor and the zombie in the doorway, was now higher than ever before, almost a certainty. Rebecca wanted to give up, but she still tried to keep her head above water. While the rest of her body was now painted bloodred her feet were able to gain traction on the floor. She could not bear to look at her undead husband coming to get her. If anything, her eyes shut in sheer anticipation of the bite.