All the Dead Are Here (20 page)

He was about to hit the lockdown button which would seal everyone in their respective rings when the Bunsen burner lying against the oxygen pipe in Professor West’s lab reached the optimum temperature and exploded with a muffled thump. It took out the electrical conduits next to it, and electricity surged through the junction box blowing fuses which shattered in sequence taking out the security system as it went. He could see flames filling Professor West’s lab before the camera melted and his screen exploded with error messages scrolling up the screen almost as fast as he could read them.

Error 8204584 Door 16 Quadrant 2a level 4 breach

Error 8205673 Door 20 Quadrant 2c level 4 breach

Error 8209284 Door 4 Quadrant 1b level 4 no response to breach request

Error 7645838 Junction 5 security system inoperative

The facility map on the screen to his right was littered with small red boxes showing errors and problem with the whole system, and at the bottom of the screen a large message read.

FACILITY LOCKDOWN BREACH INITIATE? Yes/No

He ignored the message and stared at Janice on the screen. She had left her unfinished report and was at the emergency Bio suit locker wrestling with the door to get at her suit. He looked at the quadrant two door that Gary had begged to be let through to see it flashing red on the map. The infected were streaming through it taking victims as they went to increase their numbers. There had managed to break through into level three Bio security and were in the same area as Janice. They would be on her location in a couple of minutes, and he would have to watch her die in the same way as Gary. Seth went cold. If he initiated lockdown, he would never smell her hair or her skin, he would never again look into her eyes, he would never feel her warmth in the night. He would never sit and watch the sun fade to a sepia tone in their beautiful garden.

No. He couldn’t deny himself her presence. He couldn’t feel her pain as the infected bit into her flesh but he could feel his pain at her loss. No. He wouldn’t let it happen.

Seth grabbed the phone list and scanned quickly down it seeking the number of the phone in her office. He dialled the number and watched her reaction on the monitor. She paused with the suit in her hands, unsure as to whether ignore the phone and put on her suit.
“
Come on, come on
!
”
thought Seth. She dropped the suit and picked up the phone, he didn’t let her answer.

“Janice, Seth. Get out of there, run clockwise towards quadrant one.”

“Seth, Just initiate the lockdown. I’ll stay in the office. It’s fine!” she said in measured tones.

“No! There was an explosion. The whole system’s fucked! They’ll be on you in less than a minute!” he screamed down the phone.

“Who’ll be…” she started, and then she heard the howls, she turned away from the phone and for a moment Seth thought she was going to go and investigate.

“JANICE!” he screamed down the line. She put the phone back to her ear.

“Get into the main corridor, go down to Quadrant one. Keep heading round until you get to the airlock. I think it’s still functioning I can let you into level one!”

“But!...”

“NOW!”

It was enough. She dropped the phone and sprinted out of the room, She hit the main corridor at a sprint and ran towards Quadrant 1. She could hear them behind her howling in rage. Seth could see them less than twenty seconds behind her, but they were closing in, fuelled by the virus and adrenaline they would catch up with her. As she approached the door she saw the red light turn to green above it as Seth activated it. She yanked it open and dived through, she tripped as she turned but was one her feet in an instant. The infected, now numbering about forty dived at the door. Its slow close mechanism held it just long enough for the lead infected to dive through pulling it open for his colleagues behind.

Janice sprinted round the gentle curve of the building, panic gripping her mind as she did so. In the security office Seth stood up and traced her route around malfunctioning doors and with a greasy finger which stayed as a line on the screen. He watched her approach the airlock to level 2, from there she could get straight through a second airlock to level one and again to the open offices beyond. From there he would lead her round to the large loading bay which was big enough to hold several large artic trucks while they were unloaded. Then he could just open the loading bay door, let her out and initiate the lockdown. They would both be safe and all he had to do was wait for the military clean up team to clear the corridors from the loading bay to his office and let him out.

Janice panted heavily as she approached the first airlock, watching for the red light above to go green, it did so just as she did so and she slapped the pad on the wall with her hand. The door slid open slowly and she turned to look back up the corridor. She could see the shadows of the infected as they rounded the corner and then they came into view howling and screaming as they ran. Janice squeezed herself through the gap, hitting the button on the inside as she slipped through. The airlock was a five metre long stainless steel corridor with a gridded metal floor. She ran towards the other end of the corridor. The door behind her slid slowly shut as the infected reached it tried to pry it open but the force of the closing mechanism severing fingers and arms, which fell to the floor with a splat as the door finally shut. Janice’ panting lungs echoed around the chamber as she waited for the decontamination cycle to complete.

Then a second explosion rippled through the building much greater than the first, sprinkler systems activated in some sections of the building, as did halon systems in the server rooms. Seth watched the map screen as a series of new red lights cycled round Bio security level two towards Janice’ position, ending over the airlock she was now trapped in. In the chamber an alarm sounded and she watched in horror as the door between her and the infected started to opening jerkily as its access light flickered green. She slapped the panel repeatedly to open the door and let her out, relief flooding her system as the light went green and it started to open slowly.

Seth watched the scene in horror before realising he would have to direct through the next airlock. Unfortunately he couldn’t confirm if the doors would work, so he switched cameras and activated it remotely, tricking the system into thinking it was a maintenance check. The door to the admin offices opened but the door to allow Janice into the next airlock didn’t. Frantically he scoured the map looking for a way through. After agonising seconds he found it. If he could get her to turn left out of the airlock she was in to the end of that quadrant there was a maintenance access shaft in the roof where she could backtrack into the next airlock, by pure chance there was a security deck underneath it. How could he tell her his new plan. He grabbed the phone list and found the number for the security desk. Frantically he dialled the number.

In the airlock she squeezed though the gap but it wasn’t wide enough. At the other end of the airlock the door between her and the infected had started to open seconds before and they started to squeeze through. They broke through one at a time and sprinted down the metal room towards her, their shouts echoing round the chamber. In panic, she grabbed on the outside of the door and pushed with all her strength. She strained her ribs and popped though as the infected reached her grabbing her lab coat. She yanked it free and fell on her bum as they infected reached through the door to get her. She jumped to her feet and hit the panel on the wall to close the door, but the light stayed green even though the door stopped moving. She turned and hit the next airlock open panel which stayed red. The infected wrestled with each other to get through the airlock door to her, grasping, blood covered arms, snatching at her as she realised over the alarms she could hear a phone ringing. She took off at a sprint towards the sound. As she reached the phone the first infected popped though the gap in the airlock, followed by another then another. She picked the phone up.

“Look up!” screamed Seth. “Get up there and cut back towards the airlock, turn first left and drop down into it” Seth could hear her laboured breath at the other end of the line.
“
Please God, don’t let that be the last thing I say to
her
!”
he thought.

She vaulted onto the table and popped the skylight to the maintenance shaft. She grabbed the corners and pulled herself up as the first infected dived at her legs, grabbing her shoe. She wiggled her foot and it came free and she climbed into the small metal corridor, just large enough for her to crawl down. She could see the left turn ahead but it was far further the crawl that it had looked in the corridor, she took off at a rapid crawl, the pop riveted joins in the floor bloodying her knees as she went. Then she heard it behind her. She turned and saw the first head rise slowly through the hole behind her. Its hair was black and covered in bits of bone and gristle, its forehead, death white, with a mottle of blue veins, rose into view. Then its eyes, bloodshot and full of malice, followed by its snarling broken teeth and gore covered chin. It looked at her for a moment and she looked at it. Then it snarled like a rabid dog and pulled itself rapidly into the shaft as she crawled off, as fast as she could towards the turning ahead. She could hear her own frantic breath and the loud banging of the thing crawling after her. In her imagination it was on her but she pressed on. She reached the turning and glanced back to see the shaft filling with infected but the distance remained the same, her small frame advantageous in the narrow gap.

In the security office Seth had watched her disappear into the shaft quickly followed by infected, but he couldn’t see her in the shaft so he switched the view to the airlock where he punched the button to open the door into the staging area and admin offices beyond. Seconds ticked by, he imagined her ripped to shreds in the shaft, he held his breath.
“
Come on, come on
!”
he willed her. Finally he saw the roof panel buckle and drop as a shapely leg pounded at it from above, but still he didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until she hung from the roof and dropped gently onto the metal grate. She was fine.

In the airlock Janice kicked off her remaining shoe and sprinted off through the staging area with bio suits and safety equipment hanging from the pristine walls. She heard the airlock door start to close behind her as she heard the first two infected drop to the floor. She hit the door to the Admin offices and flung it open with a crash. Sprinting down the central aisle she paused to swing chairs and monitors behind her to impede the progress of the creatures behind her who were now a way behind at the beginning of the offices. Seth counted eight altogether who had made it through the airlock before it shut with a clunk. They entered the offices scanning around wildly for their prey as Janice hit the double doors to the loading bay like a footballer going for a tackle.

The loading bay had a raised platform with a series of forklift trucks and racking for stores parts and equipment, the platform had a series on ‘U’ shapes cut into it where trucks could park at a level where a forklift could enter the rear of the truck and access the load. Two of the bays had empty trailers waiting to leave the unit.

Seth breathed a sigh of relief, all she had to do now was run across the warehoused size bay to the loading door where he could open it a fraction to let her roll underneath. His finger hovered over the ‘open’ button in anticipation. He had to time it right or the infected would get out as well.

She didn’t run towards the doors, she followed the interior wall round the loading bay. “
What are you doing?”
He screamed to himself. Then he realised. She was making her way round to the Security offices, she was trying to get to him, not out.

“
No, no, no, no
,”
he thought repeatedly as she reached the locked door that lead to a series of corridors. She rounded the corner into the short corridor that ended in the security door just as the infected burst through the double doors and started scanning the loading bay for her location, like wolves hunting a rabbit.

Seth estimated he had maybe thirty seconds before they found her again. He scanned the CCTV outside the loading bay doors to see a number of security guards milling around outside. He couldn’t assess their actions but they were wondering why the alarms were going off without the lockdown alarm kicking in. In his mind he timed leaving his office, sprinting through the corridors to get to her, but it meant getting through two keypad doors and a card security door. There wasn’t enough time, it would take a minute or two to get to her. Not enough time. NOT ENOUGH TIME!

Seth sat back slightly. With dread realisation he had only two options as he watched the infected scan inside the trailers and underneath to find their hidden prey.

He could open the loading bay doors which would attract the infected and let them out to the security guards outside. There they would spread like wildfire through the compound, and the City beyond, killing everything in their path, Shelley, Alice and Anna, his mother and everything he knew would fall victim to the deadly virus which would rip through the World like an apocalypse. This would give him the precious seconds he needed to get to her and let her into the Security section, and back into his loving arms.

Or, he could initiate the lockdown, sealing everyone in the building but let her die at the hands of the creatures, watching her torn apart and turned into a snarling bestial thing like Gary.

His eyes flicked over the screens in panic. Twenty seconds.

He looked at the button beneath his hand. So innocuous with its edges rounded off from innocent use, faded green plastic, so inviting, so deadly. Its brass bezel stained dark with age. He looked at the screens again, the infected were two thirds of the way round the bay, flicking barcode scanners and boxes over in frustration, but still close enough to the loading bay door. Ten Seconds.