Genesis Plague (40 page)

I
t was hard to rip myself away from the expansive wall of
information when Maria called urgently from the other room.

Flint was sitting
upright in his chair, eyes more closed than open, chin drooping on his chest.
Maria held a thick binder and thumbed quickly through the laminated pages.

“I found this in the
safe,” she said, shaking her head. “It was unlocked, so I decided to have a
look.”

Behind her against the
wall was a small black safe, its door half open to reveal two shelves stacked
with manila folders.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Backup plans,” she
said, “in case the world ends.”

I laughed, and she
jumped at the harsh noise.

“Sorry,” I said, still
grinning. “Just a touch of delirium. Let’s take a look.”

We flipped through the
pages and stopped on a blueprint of the building. We both pointed to a medical symbol
indicating a clinic in another part of the facility.

“Section Zero-Five,”
said Maria. “Good news, Flint. We’ll have you patched up in no time.”

His head lolled around
and he mumbled something which could be interpreted as a thank you.

Maria turned the page
to reveal a list of coordinates followed by country names, all of them in the
arctic circle.

“Research bases,” she
said, reading from a dense block of text at the bottom of the page. “Looks like
someone else is trying to find a cure.”

“Where’s the nearest
base?” I asked.

She ran a finger down
the page and stopped halfway. “Greenland. Eighty-second parallel, thirty miles
south of the Arctic Ocean.”

“That’s pretty damn
cold,” I said.

“Why build them so far
north?” she asked.

The question remained
unanswered as we turned the next page in the binder to see a diagram of a rocket.
Hand-scribbled equations were packed tightly into every inch of the page. The
title at the top read PROJECT ARK in bold black lettering. The faint outline of
a horde of tiny human figures lined the inside of the rocket.

“You’re shitting me,”
said Maria. “It mentions a lunar base. That’s a joke, right?”

I shrugged. “If you
have enough money, anything is possible. But look,” I said, pointing to a box
of text in the lower corner of the page. It read
Project Status: Cancelled
.

We turned the page to
find a detailed design for a domed, underwater city, completely
self-sustaining, powered by deep-core hydrothermal vents beneath the ocean
floor.

“Project Atlantica,”
said Maria, unable to keep the sense of wonder from her voice. “The status is
blank. I wonder if they even started to build it.”

The next page was a
design for a long compartment, almost like a train carriage, built on a set of
tracks that led to an unknown destination. The outlines of human figures rested
in vertical sleeping pods along the walls of the movable compartment.

“This project is only
meant for a handful of people,” said Maria.

“Not much of an
insurance plan for the entire human race.”

Maria frowned as she
reads. “‘Project status, complete. Rapid City facility, Section Zero-Five.’”
She looked at me. “It’s somewhere in this building.”

“Right next to the
clinic. There’s another page here…” I said, pulling out a folded piece of paper
from a pocket of the laminated sheet. “It’s a crew manifest.”

I scanned through the
list of names but didn’t find the one I was looking for.

“She’s not here, Paul,”
said Maria softly.

“There are two blank
spaces on the manifest.”

“But that doesn’t mean
she took one of them.”

I slammed the binder
shut and Flint’s eyes popped open.

“Why are you so
hell-bent on convincing me she’s dead?” I said loudly. I could feel my cheeks
flushing with heat.

“I’m just trying to keep
you grounded in reality,” said Maria. “We can’t be dreamers now, Paul. We have to
think clearly and stay focused. Otherwise, we’re finished.”

“She’s right,” said
Flint weakly. “I’m sorry Paul, but she’s right.”

I threw the binder
against the wall and tried to rub some of the exhaustion from my eyes.

For a blessed moment, everything
was calm.

Then, from somewhere
outside the administration office, there came a dull, rhythmic knocking, like
the ticking of a hollow clock.

“What is that?” asked
Flint, breathing heavily.

“I don’t think I want
to find out,” said Maria. “Come on, let’s get to the clinic.”

We hauled Flint to his
feet and shuffled from the administration office.

Maria nodded toward the
far end of the factory room, which was a good quarter of a mile away down a
long, wide aisle between rows of towering tanks and machinery.

The hollow, rhythmic
knocking grew louder as we walked farther from the office. All of the
garage-style bay doors lining the wall that separated us from the jungle were
closed, except for one.

We slowed down as we
passed the open bay.

Within the deep, dark
room, at least fifty men and women huddled together. Most of them wore blue
coveralls streaked with dirt and blood. Some wore dull orange hardhats. All were
silent.

The wall on the far
side of the room was another metal rolling door that lead to the jungle, but it
was closed.

One woman stood apart
from the others in the room, slowly banging her head against the wall. The
noise echoed out of the room and into the factory.

Maria took a step
toward them.

“Hey!” she said loudly.
“You need to get the hell out—”

One of the men looked
in our direction. I grabbed Maria’s arm and pulled her back.

“They’re infected!” I
whispered.

Probably six days in,
judging by the severity of their lesions.

The worker looking at
us opened his mouth to reveal gums swollen and black. He wheezed loudly, and
the other workers noticed us for the first time.

A scratchy voice from
the huddled crowd said, “Join us.”

Another croaked softly,
“
Help me
.”

“Don’t make any sudden
movements,” I said quietly. “Maria, do you see a way to shut that door?”

She nodded toward a
small control panel on the wall next to the opening.

“They seem perfectly
fine keeping to themselves,” she said.

I thought back to Roger
Levino and Dan Grayson. Roger did just fine until the very end, when he roasted
himself alive with an incendiary grenade. But Dan went berserk in a major way,
bashing his head into the wall until his brains were on the outside of his
skull.

“I don’t want them
surprising us later,” I said. “You take Flint and head to the clinic. I’ll isolate
the infected and meet up with you on the way to the clinic.”

She took Flint from me
and went as fast as she could down the aisle. I walked slowly toward the open
bay door.

The workers shrank back
as I approached, pawing at each other and getting as close as they could to the
other infected. I was a few feet from the room when the reek of rot and dried
blood slammed into me like a sledgehammer.

The facility wasn’t
evacuated after all. The virus got loose. What remained of the workers was now
huddled before me, desperately clinging together in their final hours.

The woman banging her
head against the wall stopped and turned toward me. Her wet, stringy hair clung
to her hollow cheeks. In the darkness of the room, her red eyes appeared almost
black. I flipped up the cover on the control panel next to the door and pressed
one of the two green buttons.

The door didn’t close.

While the rest of her
coworkers grouped closer together, the head-banger woman walked toward me, her
jaw opening and closing with the loud clacks of bone striking bone.

I mashed both buttons
furiously as she approached, waiting for that sweet electric sound as the door
rolled down.

I noticed a heaping
mound of dead bodies in the corner to my right. Wet flesh glistened in the dark.
Suddenly the open door of the room was like the wide maw of some nightmare creature,
and the infected within were its teeth.

The group of workers
slowly followed after the woman as she approached me. Perhaps they wanted her
back in the fold, or perhaps they were finally taking an interest in yours
truly.

I mashed the buttons
one last time to no effect, and turned to run.

Thooommmmm
.

The metal door on the
other side of the dark room rattled under the heavy impact.

Thooommmmm
.

The workers turned
slowly toward the sound. A third impact ripped a hole in the middle of the
metal door. A wiry arm reached through the hole, splitting it wider. Light shot
into the dark room as one of the infected men with a parasite ripped at the
wall. Soon the other parasitic man and woman joined in, bloody fingers tearing
at the metal, until the hole was wide enough for them to crawl through.

I ran after Maria and
Flint without looking back.

T
he run to Section Zero-Five was a straight shot down a wide
aisle, which was potentially both good and bad.

Good because,
historically speaking, I wasn’t the best with directions. Bad because anything
that ran faster than me knew exactly where to find me with no obstacles
blocking their path.

It was just one of the
many things I tried not to think about as I raced down the aisle on the factory
floor. Flint and Maria were nowhere to be seen. Hopefully they had already made
it safely to the clinic. The longer I could keep the bloodthirsty throngs of infected
off their trail, the better.

There was a loud crash
behind me and I risked a quick look back. A body flew out of the room and
slammed into a metal tank, sticking there like a squashed bug on a windshield.

Head-banger woman ran
out of the room, followed by the other infected workers. The woman barreled
toward me with shocking speed, her legs pumping like an Olympic runner’s. Soon the
rest of her group was far behind, which was bad for them when the three
parasitic infected lurched from the side room, knocking away anyone in their
path after they spotted me farther down the aisle.

The head-banger woman was
almost on top of me. I wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted, but even if it was
just to give me a hug, I wasn’t really in the hugging mood.

I had almost reached
the end of my physical ability to run at top speed, but I gave it enough of a
burst to put a small cushion of safe distance between myself and the
rapidly-approaching infected woman.

A series of catwalks
crossed over the large tanks that covered the factory floor. Tall metal ladders
were bolted to the sides of some of the tanks.

I ran for the closest
ladder and jumped, landing several rungs up. I climbed like a maniac, my eyes
focused on the platform above which, in that moment, seemed like it might as
well have been on the moon.

Head-banger woman
grabbed my ankle from below. I kicked hard, crunching her nose. She didn’t seem
to notice. She looked up at me, her eyes filled with neither rage nor sorrow.
She used my hesitation to her advantage and pulled my leg away from the ladder.
My sweaty palms slipped off the rung and I fell. My wrists banged against the
next two rungs until the underside of my bicep slammed into the same one that
supported the infected woman.

I clung to it
desperately.

The woman grabbed my
face and pulled it close to hers, and I smelled death from an inch away. She
opened her swollen mouth and gargled as she prepared to spit in my face.

Then she was yanked
down faster than I could blink, ripped off the rung by the parasitic woman, who
dropped her to the floor.

My arm throbbed where I
hit the rung to stop my fall, but the pain was easy enough to ignore when the
threat of death loomed so close.

The parasitic woman
reached up and I kicked her hand away. I screamed as high-pitched as I could.
The woman shook her head, trying to clear away the sound.

The top few feet of the
ladder were enclosed in a narrow cage barely large enough for a human. I kept
shrieking as I squeezed into it, the woman close behind.

I scaled the last few
rungs through the cage quickly and flopped onto the grated catwalk on my back,
panting for breath. The woman tugged on the narrow metal cage. I made the
mistake of taking my time in getting to my feet. I heard the groan of metal as
the woman ripped the cage away.

Whatever else that
parasite did to the infected, it made them
strong
.

Her fingernails sank
down into the hard metal of the catwalk, peeling away a thin layer as if it
were the skin of a potato.

Now I knew what made
the scratches on the operating table.

The woman ripping away
the ladder’s cage was enough to recharge my batteries for a quick run.

But then she stopped
climbing. A group of the infected workers had climbed the ladder in pursuit,
and collectively they had the parasitic woman by her legs, dragging her
downward. The two parasitic men were on the ground at the base of the ladder,
pulling off the workers one at a time.

The grated metal platform
under my feet jerked downward, collapsing under the added weight of the
workers. The ladder buckled in the middle and they all fell to the floor,
landing atop the two parasitic men.

The parasitic woman
looked up at me as she clung to the ladder, still determined to catch her prey,
when the ladder groaned and snapped free. She crashed to the floor. Thirty feet
of metal ladder landed on top of her and the other infected.

I almost had time to
smile before I realized I was still on a section of sinking catwalk. The
platform squealed under my feet and lurched to one side. There was one hesitant
moment when the catwalk didn’t move. I stood perfectly still, as if that was
going to make everything better. I could just stand there for the rest of my
life and everything would be fine.

Then the platform
slowly tilted to the side and I had to run. Sections of the catwalk fell away
behind me, crashing against the large tanks below on their way to the floor.
The catwalk ended ahead, but there was a door that I really hoped lead to
Section Zero-Five, to a cure for the virus, to Flint and Maria, to Cassidy, and
to a way out of that damned facility.

But I would have plenty
of time to think about that if I made it to safety.

I was a few feet away
when the catwalk started to fall away beneath my feet. I took a final leap and
slammed through the door, splintering it down the middle as I fell to the floor
in the next room.