Beyond Death: Origins, Book 1 (3 page)

Chase’s feet flew out from under him. With the hand he’s just sliced on the broken glass of the window, he pushed himself back up. He regained his balance as he broke into a run. It was an awesome feat for even him.  He analyzed his distance with their distance to the door.  A split second hypothesis told him they’d make it at the same time. He wouldn’t be able to shut the door on that many of them. He had to beat them to it.

Bracing for the impact, he took a leap. His feet landed just through the doorway. He grabbed the door handle to stop his body’s momentum.
Damned fire regulations
, he thought as the open door slammed into the stairwell wall. His knee hit the chair that some idiot had used to keep the automatic door from closing. At least that flew toward the threat. Didn’t faze them much though. A mere foot from two of them now, he jumped back through the door. Doorknob in hand, he pulled the door toward him. It didn’t slam.

Instead, it caught on an outstretched arm. The sight of the dead skin sickened him. He’d never get used to it, like an animated corpse. Giving the door a hard push in the usual direction of egress, it stopped short. Their moans rang out. From the thuds, he’d hit a few on the head with it. Many had tumbled down the stairs in unison from the impact.

“Like dominoes,” he exhaled the words.

Slamming the door shut, the automatic lock clicking into place was the best thing he’d heard all night.  Before he could catch a breath, he turned to the scratch of metal. Lucas had pushed a chair his way.

“Throw it up under the latch just in case,” he urged.

“I don’t think they’re going to bust down a double-walled fire door, but no precaution can be too much at this point,” he wheezed.

Chase checked the door on the other end of the hall before going back to the lab.

“Look at her,” Lucas said when Chase got back into the lab.

“Do I have to?” Chase asked as he bent over to catch his breath.

The rush that propelled him to action tapered off by making him dizzy. He’d been there before.

“You were amazing. And you call yourself old. Did you see the moves you put on those zombies?” Lucas carried on.

“So now they’re zombies?” Chase asked.

He looked up at the boy. Coming to a stand, he glanced at the girl still making in-human sounds and fighting on the floor. She didn’t sweat. She didn’t focus. She just reacted. In that thing, he barely saw the girl he’d once known.

“What else would you call them? Do your tests, but she’s not one of the living. I don’t know how, but it seems the movies were only predictions. Do you think any of the books got it right? Do you think we could finally learn from fiction about real life?”

“Calm down. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Chase huffed. “The initial assessment says you’re right, but my brain hasn’t caught up. It’s waiting for my old body to stop depriving it of oxygen at the moment. I acted on instinct, but with muscles that hadn’t moved that way in years.”

“You need to get out of those bloody clothes,” Lucas yelled over the current round of agitated groans form the thing on the floor.

As Chase changed his clothes and washed off, Lucas rambled on. Chase didn’t seem to need to bother with answering the boy. Lucas worked through his thoughts and theories out loud.

“What do you think this all means?” Lucas finally asked.

“I think it means that I need to call Jayda. Out of my life or not, I care about her.”

Jayda woke from sleep with a start. Sitting straight up, she listened for the sound that woke her to repeat.

“What is it?” her husband Richard asked.

Blinking, her dark-haired Richard sat up to put an arm around her.

“I heard something,” she whispered.

“It’s just a bad dream,” Richard yawned. “You’ve been tossing and turning all night. I’ve never gotten close to a deep sleep.”

“Quiet,” she grumbled.

Another crash sounded, followed by the breaking of glass. They both jumped out of bed at the same time. Jayda went right for a baseball bat she kept under the bed. At least she no longer slept with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. She’s stopped that for Richard’s sake, but slept better knowing she had some sort of weapon close by. She went for her crutch second. She had no time to put on her prosthetic leg.

Before they met at the edge of the bed, a repetition of objects breaking rang up from the dining room. Jayda maneuvered through the door before Richard. Even with his hand now clamped on her arm, she shrugged him off and moved forward. Her steps, hindered by the crutch, didn’t slow her down.  Daily exercises kept up her strength and agility, not to mention her peace of mind.

Down the steps, Richard hovering, she glared at him. He knew better than to treat her differently. Poor guy didn’t get the chance to be a gentleman or she took offense. Yet another crash led them to the living room. Looking cautiously around the wall, Jayda saw a lamp down a person charging through. The lamp falling had turned them back toward the dining room and away from Jayda and Richard.

Obviously the intruder had already been through that room like a bull in a china shop. Debris of dishes littered the ground. Thankful for the carpet, she easily maneuvered unheard with her crutch. Baseball bat up, she inched forward.  Richard grabbed the bat from her hand. Before she could glare at him, the intruder turned their way.

In the dim light from the streetlamp shining through the sheers, Jayda thought she recognized the face.

“Lisa?” Jayda asked.

The person lunged at her. Instinct had her push the person away with both hands as her crutch fell away. Shaking out her arms from the impact, she noticed what she thought was her fallen neighbor getting back up. Richard stood beside her, bat up.

“Put the bat down. That’s Lisa, right?” Jayda hissed.

“I think so,” he answered, bat still up.

As Richard handed her the fallen crutch, the woman made a shaky jump to her feet. She lunged at Jayda again. One hand grabbing the wall, she maneuvered her crutch. The rubber on the end hit the woman on the stomach. She barely stopped and lunged again. This time, Jayda pushed with the crutch, sending the woman into a sprawl on the floor.

Richard flipped on the light then.

“It is Lisa, I think,” Jayda exclaimed. “But she doesn’t look right.”

A step forward, just as the woman opened her eyes. Glazed, grayish, and unfocused, Jayda didn’t have time to take it all in before the woman moved to get up again. Before she stood though, she reached a hand out to grab Jayda.

Richard stepped in and plowed the end of the bat into the woman’s chest.

“Richard, you could kill her!” Jayda yelled.

“She already looks dead!” he screamed back.

The man never raised his voice. That’s one reason she loved him. He was as far from a military man as one could get. Her hero in other ways.

Down a second, Jayda realized they were both right. This intruder was Lisa from next door. Also, she looked dead there on the floor. Having served, Jayda knew dead. At least she thought.

“Do you think she’s sick? Maybe it’s that new meningitis virus they’re talking about all over the news?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Her shin has no color except a greyish-blue. I don’t see any visible wounds though.” He looked closer as he leaned over her, bat to his side.

Lisa moved again, just a twitch, and they stood up. Seconds later, the woman jumped up like an exhausted ninja trying moves for the first time. She shook, but stayed. She moved quickly, but not agile. With a feral groan, she lunged at Richard. Jayda caught his bat as he raised it. She swung at the woman’s head. The thud of metal against the woman’s skull sent a tremor down her arms.

“I held back, but she just won’t stay down,” Jayda cried out.

“It’s fine. Let’s drag her to the bathroom and shut her in before she moves again. Looks like drugs to me. They tend to keep moving beyond reasonable force to stop them,” Richard stated.

He grabbed Lisa under her arms and drug her to the bathroom. Jayda watched the sweat break out on his forehead. Their neighbor outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. Richard worked in forensics, so while not a cop, he knew all about the field.

“What the hell?” Jayda grumbled, wiping sweat off her own forehead. “I’ve never known Lisa to indulge in a drug stronger than coffee and chocolate. She doesn’t even drink. She said something about feeling sick this morning, though. I saw her earlier outside. She said she thought she had a migraine and was going to call off work and climb back into bed.”

“Headache with sensitivity to light is a sign of meningitis,” Richard added.

He guided Jayda to the couch. She chose not to gripe at him for it. Ever gentle, he sat her down. Ever caring, he took her crutch. With his usual concerned half-smile when she did more than he thought she should, he threw a blanket from the back of the couch over her shoulders.

“I thought she looked pretty bad. All pale and stuff. But nothing like now. Plus, she had no energy like they’d talked about on TV. She had enough energy for three people tonight. And we’ve both had beyond our fair share of experiences with dead bodies. She looks like a corpse. Not like the walking dead crap you see on TV, but like a real live body out of the morgue.”

A loud moan followed by a thud came from the bathroom. The noise startled both Jayda and Richard. The sounds became repetitious. A continuous, uneven thumping against the bathroom door continued.

“How is that even possible,” Jayda asked. “I hit her in the head with a bat?”

“I have no idea. Do you think we should call the police?” Jayda asked.

“I am the police,” Richard grumbled.

“Not armed, babe. No offence.”

“I have a bat. I think we need to hit her again and then throw her out of the house. Maybe then call the police.”

“What good will that do?”

“I want her out of the house before she breaks through that door. The thing is fake, two thin sheet of plastic. Hollow in the…”

A crack interrupted him.

“All for your plan, dear,” Jayda agreed as she stood.

“You open the door and I’ll hit her,” Richard semi-demanded.

In no mood to fight, she just shook her head.

On the count of three, Jayda opened the door and Richard stood with his bat at the ready. Lisa fell, stumbled, then righted herself. In seconds, she lunged at Jayda. Knocking them both to the ground, Jayda saw her neighbor’s mouth open as if to bite her. Before she could even react, the bat came down, literally cracking Lisa’s skull.

“I’d like to run some tests on the zombie. What do you think,” Chase asked Lucas.

“Probably a good idea. Maybe we can help. I can keep logging the results on our one mouse of interest while you do that. I don’t know how we’re gonna get out of here,” Lucas sighed. “Might as well keep busy.”

“We’ll try to call for help again in a bit. I’m sure many more people are in our predicament. I’m sure we’ll catch a break and get through soon enough.”

Chase moved the zombie. He pushed her name in life far from his mind. Luckily as she decomposed, she looked less and less human. That idea got him started on testing the decomposition of the body. He wondered if this moving body decomposed at the same rate as a dead person’s. Usually decomposition rate told you the time of death if unknown. They had the approximate time of death down to less than a twenty-four hour period. So, he’d work the opposite way.

They both worked tirelessly for a few hours. Chase, already tired from his battles, had to push through the aches. He had to fight for each sample he took from his moving dead girl. He’d finally taped up her chomping mouth, more to stop the sounds. Still, her groans came from deep in her chest.

“I don’t understand why she won’t stop moving. Zombies don’t sleep?” Chase grumbled.

“Not in the movies,” Lucas laughed.

“Great. I’m getting nowhere here. She’s dead. That I’ve confirmed. Other than that, I can explain nothing. I do have some new markers on this strain of meningitis. Odd thing is, it doesn’t look normal at all. In fact, I think it looks biochemical. Maybe that’s just my experience with that crap talking. The military made me too suspicious.”

“I’ve always suspected that being in Special Forces would do that to a person,” Lucas agreed. “But I also spent way too much time growing up with my nose in some suspense or horror novel.”

“I’m not having any more luck over here with the mouse. It’s so frustrating when it’s all right there, but you can’t put your finger on it,” Lucas huffed. “I’ve altered these tests every way I can think of. Still, a big fat nothing.”

“No other mouse in the bunch reacted that way. Maybe it was a fluke thing. Maybe we’ll never get anywhere but to chalk it up to some odd DNA,” Chase said with a shrug, then yawned.

“I think it’s time for more coffee. I’d like to check out the news again too,” Lucas yawned out his words as well. “Hey, you worried at all about those chairs holding up?”

“No. Those doors are made to resist fires these days. If a fire alarm was pulled, yeah, then it would unlock. Still, unlock doesn’t mean these guys, though strong, could figure out how to push down and pull open the door at the same time. She’s not brilliant this one,” Chase joked. “They could bump it down, but that’s about it. I think we’re safe.”

“Figure out why the blows to the head killed the dead,” Lucas asked. “I can’t believe I just asked such a question.”

“Nope. Coffee.”

“Sure.”

As Chase nuked two cups of the old stuff they hadn’t finished, Lucas turned on the TV. The screen pixelated as the sound crackled. Lucas shrugged at Chase. It seemed to warm up like the old TVs did, and then came to life.

“All flights have now been grounded now. They’re not telling us when any plane will take off again. They want all air-travelers to remain at home until further notice. Subways, buses, and all other sources of transportation have been forced to shut down as well. Everyone is being asked to stay home unless it is a dire emergency,” a blond anchor in the news room said.

“She seems frazzled. She’s either not delivering the lines well, or her writer is frazzled and he’s not giving her much to work with,” Chase added.

The program cut to the local streets. As a reporter talked through heavy breaths, scenes of chaos flashed one by one on the screen. Store windows all over town were broken. People fought to steal supplies and for their lives. The zombies walked everywhere. They grabbed at everything that moved. The camera cut out any attacks, so scenes were brief. The living were fighting for stuff and the dead were fighting to attack the living.

“What a mess,” Lucas exclaimed.

“Doesn’t look like many are listening. Don’t really see military or cops much in those shots either. No wonder we can’t get through the lines. Who knows how many of them we’ve lost as well,” Chase spoke, trying to hide the tremble in his voice.

He didn’t want to fail this kid. He wouldn’t fail another person he cared about. He couldn’t survive that. He’d left out that he’d seen a zombie in a cop uniform. Obviously the boy hadn’t.

“I don’t understand how this has happened so fast,” Lucas sighed.

“Don’t worry. I have a few military contacts I can still try. We’ll get through to someone who will help us.”

He just wished Jayda would answer her phone or return a call.

****

Dr. Benton looked around him. He tried to take in his surroundings. His exhaustion levels grew after working a double shift, witnessing a murder, and then being forcefully put into a military plane. Unable to see out a window during the flight, he had no idea where he’d landed. All he’d seen was the top of a building in the middle of a very secure military compound.

Now in a lab like none he’d ever seen before even in the best colleges, he sat guarded, watching some assortment of CDC, military, and scientists argue about the epidemic. He couldn’t really distinguish who was who in lab coats.

“It didn’t mutate that way in the original tests,” a guy said quietly.

“They were done on animals, ass,” another guy practically growled.

“So, now what?” his CDC kidnapper demanded.

“We’re running tests,” another white coat stated.

“Run them faster,” a red-faced man demanded. “We need a cure. Get your guy over here.”

The CDC guy looked his way and the men with large guns got him up. The bruises on his arms from being restrained throbbing too much to protest, he nodded and stood.

“You’re up, Dr. Benton. We need fresh eyes on this one,” the CDC guy said.

“Seriously?” a lab coat huffed. “This guy looks like he’s been through a war.”

“We’ll get him coffee,” CDC retorted.

“I don’t even understand what’s going on here. This afternoon I had six patients dying from what we thought was meningitis. Then you had them killed. Now, I hear the word epidemic and thankfully cure. But I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on,” Benton spat.

His head had started to spin when he stood. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten as his stomach growled painfully.

“I don’t like the way you’re talking to me, Doctor,” CDC hissed.

The military guys moved, their heels clicking on the shiny floor an alert to trouble.

“The guy’s too tired. He probably needs food and sleep,” a white coat offered.

“I want to help,” Benton said in his best restrained voice. “But first I need to see the research already done. I need brought up to speed.”

“We’ll get you the information,” CDC grumbled. “But first, food and some sleep. The world’s falling down around us, but you should catch some ZZZ’s.”

“I was only pointing out that we’re not machines,” the white coat retorted.

“Then why are you here?” CDC yelled at the coat, then looked at the guards. “Get him out of here. Room down the hall has a cot. He can grab a meal bar and a water in there.”

Benton followed without fight. His spirits fell as he saw no identifying sign on any door as they went. All were unmarked save for numbers. All had fingerprint security to enter. Comforting. A few long hallways and an elevator ride away, they threw him in a room. As he sat on the cot, his cell phone hit his thigh. He’d forgotten he had it. None of them had thought to confiscate it.

He called Lucas. He needed touch with the outside world, but didn’t want to upset his wife. He prayed she was safe as he hit his brother’s pic on his screen. The phone rang and rang. Once it went to message, he hung up and tried again. It rang and rang. Frustrated, he threw the phone back in his pocket, and grabbed the tasty looking military grade bar they placed beside him before they’d locked him in.

Without the water, he’d have never gotten the thing down. A quick look showed a balanced diet and too many ingredients to read through. To his tongue, he tasted a mix of tree bark and sawdust. Half a bar and a few drinks of water later, it hit his empty stomach like a brick.

After trying Lucas a few more times, he could only imagine in his mind the phone on silent stuffed in the kid’s backpack. That’s the way he usually had it when he was working in the lab. Had to admire the dedication, he figured as he laid down. He hit a button for the light low on the wall. Sure he’d be left in this prison for a few hours at least, he figured he should at least try to get some sleep. Being useful had to be his only hope of survival.

As his tired mind moved toward oblivion, he heard the door unlatch. Before he could even get his hand to the light, the shadowed figure jumped on him. Pinned instantly by hands and feet, he felt something sharp jab into his stomach. Actually he heard the slicing of his flesh first. The pain hit second. As the cold coil of muscles screamed at his brain to alarm his body, he heard the blade enter him again.

He thought he jerked, but only heard the intruder grunt. The blade sliced him again. This time the pain multiplied instantly. His mind swam in confusion. Another slice of pain hit him, and he fell into blackness.