“Don’t suppose there are more zombie primates in here, do you?” Kate asked, raising her pistol and inching out of the doorway.
“Not unless you brought them in with you,” said a familiar voice from behind us. “I wouldn’t turn around too quickly. Either of you. Move slowly, hands above your heads.”
As I turned around slowly, I realized that I had my answer. He had lost weight since the film; his face was sunken and sallow. His eyes reddened by what I could only assume was a lack of sleep. The paunch had disappeared. But the black eyes were as hard as they appeared in the video. And the gun he held in his hand was steady and unwavering.
“I’d appreciate your discarding your weapons,” he said politely. We stooped slowly to the ground, laying our guns on the floor.
“So I guess that answers her question,” I said, understanding now. But the knowledge of the who didn’t inform the why.
“What question?” Kate asked.
“Why, who would do such a thing, of course,” he said, smiling. “That would be me.”
Chapter 28
He ushered us down the hall to a larger laboratory. From the elevator shaft, the vague echo of pounding reverberated through the stone of the basement walls. The whirring of the elevator motor was an ominous indication that someone or something might have wandered into an open elevator door. They need only meander into the right button to join our party.
But then again, we had our own human problems now.
“Please, have a seat,” said the good doctor, gesturing with the barrel of his snub-nosed revolver toward a pair of lab stools. We eased onto the cheap pleather upholstery as he leaned back against a tall cabinet on the opposite side of the room. A trashcan overflowing with food wrappers sat by the door; several cans of soda sat in various locations about the room, evidence of his occupation.
It was a large laboratory, with a door on the opposite side of the room that led to a marked stairwell. It was an exit door, with the stairwell only accessible from the laboratory.
However, the most conspicuous feature of the room by far was the gigantic window lining the rear of the room. Blank white walls, at times smeared with blood and other bits of zombie fodder, surrounded a white tiled floor that reflected the flickering fluorescent light of the room back through the window into the lab. A door to the chamber stood to the right of the window; an electronic keypad indicating it was a code-protected entrance.
A zombie stood immobile at the window to the lab, eyes searching endlessly back and forth, left to right. Its head was cocked slightly to one side, mouth agape. Grayish brown palms were pressed mutely against the glass, leaving smudges of oily, bloody residue on the surface. Ragged clothes hung from its limbs; clothes that used to be white, but were stained forever in the brown and red hues of its past meals, now congealed and pressed into the fabric. A security badge for this facility hung from the creature’s lapel.
“Would you like me to introduce you to Doctor Mendez?” said Kopland, gesturing toward the zombie in the room, who hadn’t moved or otherwise evidenced any indication it knew we were here.
“He’s quite harmless behind the glass. Rather like a zoo animal; he’s only provoked when I need samples or he is to be fed.” Kopland flicked a switch on a panel close to the desk at the front of the room, and a small hatch opened abruptly on the other side of the small chamber. The thing formerly known as Mendez lunged across the room as if awakened from a deep sleep, shuffling with as much haste as it could manage toward the open hatch, moans filtering through the intercom system, which must have been activated by the hatch control. He reached the hatch, clutching in frustration at empty air, clearing having expected something more.
Kopland laughingly flipped the switch once more, bringing the hatch closed with a metallic bang as the creature moaned in hunger and fury.
“He must be hungry-I haven’t fed him in days.” He shrugged and looked meaningfully at me. “Maybe later though.”
Punctuating the sentiment, Mendez threw himself against the glass as if he knew his tormentor to be present. As if he expected to reach Kopland through sheer force of desire.
I must have flinched involuntarily at the creature’s staring eyes and moving hands and Kopland noticed, noting dryly, “Don’t worry about him. He probably doesn’t even appreciate that you’re real. Funny thing about these creatures. If they see you moving behind glass, but don’t see you actually go behind the glass, they don’t recognize you. They’re like dogs. I have a theory that their visual acuity suffers subsequent to the changeover, disallowing them from seeing in three dimensions. Fascinating stuff, really.”
Ignoring the presence of the creature, which was now calming itself and resuming an immobile station against the glass, Kopland spoke unconcernedly.
“I’m curious to know whether you’re alone,” he said, distance between us giving him the luxury of folding his arms and pointing his weapon away from our heads. “Of course, it doesn’t really matter, but I am somewhat appalled by the effort it would have taken to reach our little slice of heaven.”
“We’re it,” I said before Kate could speak. I didn’t know if she was inclined to let him in on the fact that there might be others out there, but I didn’t want to risk it.
“Remarkable,” he said, and stared at us for several long seconds before moving to a locked cabinet behind a desk, keying the lock, and removing several vials of a blue liquid. I wanted to ask if he had moved the trashcan from the elevator door, but if he hadn’t, I didn’t want him to know that someone-or something-was down here with us. It might be our only opportunity for a distraction.
“I’m guessing you came all this way for this?” he asked, placing the four vials on the counter in front of him. He still held the gun, now pointed to the floor, but he was too far away to reach for it. I couldn’t believe our predicament. We travel a hundred miles over zombie-infested territory as part of what could have very well been a delusion-inspired nightmare, only to wind up the hostages of what appeared to be a mad scientist.
Still don’t believe you’re making this up?
That voice was starting to make more and more sense.
We didn’t reply to his query. He smiled, knowing that he was correct and that no affirmative nod was needed.
“A shame, really. A hearty effort. But alas…too late. I’m supposing out of mere conjecture that you believe this to be a cure?” he said, holding up the blue vials. He laughed.
Apparently this was funny?
Ha fucking ha.
“You’re not the first to make this mistake. In fact, Mr. Mcknight, you are, or should I say were, intimately acquainted with the last person to embrace this belief.” He picked up a vial of the liquid, removing the stopper and slowly tilting it’s open end over a sink. I jerked involuntarily as the contents slowly fell into the drain.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Kate’s voice was confused and troubled, as if she couldn’t conceive of the type of personality that would have sanctioned such evil.
His smile faded not at all as he unstopped a second vial. “I would think that my previous admission would have answered that last question, so I won’t entertain the inquiry except to say that my presence here was required to ensure that no… complications… interfered with my endeavor.”
“Why would you do it?” I asked, hoping in vain that he would stop pouring to speak. “What could you hope to gain from letting this thing out and killing all these people?”
His voice rose and his eyes narrowed. “Oh sir, don’t pretend to lecture me on morality. Not considering your acquaintances and their transgressions. Mine was a path divinely inspired; yours is one of degradation and Hollywood trash. Of those who were to suffer under this cataclysm, your kind was to be front and center.” His face was serious as he slowly emptied the second vial.
“OK, you need to drop the Dr. Evil act and say what you mean. You’re going to kill us anyway, right?”
He tilted his head momentarily and then nodded, the corners of his mouth edging toward another pleased expression.
“So what the hell does it matter?”
He nodded. “You’re correct, what does it matter. You’re also much more anxious for all the details of this little scenario than I would be, were I so intimately involved.” He tossed the second, now empty vial into a trashcan and looked up at me again, leaning against the lab table in front of him. His face was cruel, his eyes hard. Small hands flexed compulsively on the counter in front of him.
“I wonder, Mr. McKnight…how much of your wife’s death do you remember?”
The question hit me like a fist to the gut. What did that have to do with anything?
But in the back of my head, I suspected something. I just didn’t know what it was. And that was what scared me.
“Did she seem different to you that night? A little off? Appetite was a little changed? Maybe she liked her meat rarer than she had ever ordered it before?” He was enjoying drawing this out.
“Go to hell,” I said, feeling nauseous. I suddenly hated that he knew things.
“Mike?” Kate’s voice filtered through a mist of confusion from somewhere distant.
My mind was on fire. Her face was there again, distorted and grotesque.
A flash and my hand was grasping hers, flinging her away from me as she pawed for my shoulder. Her arms flung wide as she tumbled backwards and I reached for her instinctively, trying to arrest the fall. A needle-prick of pain in my palm as I reached for her. She stumbled back clumsily onto the floor, but rose slowly again. Implacably, she moved toward me. In her right hand, a metal device of some sort hung uselessly from a stiff finger. She moved slowly, clumsily. Her mouth moved, as if she was trying to speak. But no sound would come.
In the corner of the room, behind the door, was my golf club. I had been practicing my putting. I was going to play on Saturday. I was down to a 13 handicap.
“Oh, I think not,” he replied, bringing me back, sounding confident. “I think you remember enough, don’t you?”
“She was infected.” I stated, not a question but an affirmative declaration. This much I had suspected.
He nodded. “But you must wonder,” gesturing around the room, “how that came to be. We took all the precautions, had all the necessary safeguards. It is absolutely true that the virus would not have been allowed to pass the threshold of this facility in its compound or elemental state.” He affected a countenance of mock confusion.
Raising his hand to his chin and stroking it in a semblance of contemplation, he continued. “We wore protective clothing, and never handled the virus outside of a clean room. So she couldn’t have been infected by accident, right? And the virus travels too quickly, has far too short an incubation period to allow for a two-hour drive back to the city…”
“All seems impossible, or at the very least improbable, right?” He leaned back against the cabinets behind him, losing the mocking expression and getting serious. “Any thoughts, Mr. McKnight? Any ideas at all?”
I was mute. Kate’s eyes were wide.
“She infected herself,” he said flatly, tiring of the game. “She was trying to steal LZR-1143, and she infected herself to get the element out of the facility. It was the only way, you see? It wouldn’t have made it out on its own, and she had apparently lined up a buyer somewhere. This would be a very valuable weapon in the hands of someone bent on reducing civilization to its knees.” At this, he laughed uproariously, continuing on with laughter lining his words.
“Don’t you see?” he asked, voice high, eyes wide, “She infected herself to steal the virus, banking on this,” he held up the second-to-last blue vial, “to cure her of the virus once she had accomplished the theft. She somehow slowed the virus enough to get to the city-I must admit, I am still in the dark about her ability to do that-and injected herself with this after she had extracted a blood sample.”
Unbelievable. Impossible.
Between thoughts of disbelief and feelings of betrayal, I thought I heard movement from the hallway. But my mind was a storm cloud of uncertainty and I ignored the nagging suspicion that had been spawned by the unexplained movement of the trashcan.
He was losing steam for the story, and had picked up the gun again. He was pacing now. But laughter still touched his voice as he continued.
“But what she didn’t understand, what no one knew, was that I had indeed developed a chemical that counteracted the virus. I was successful in that work. But given security concerns, I made no one else privy to the details. Government rules, you understand. Very hush hush. She knew I had succeeded in my efforts, because I let it slip in a moment of triumphant bragging. But for all her planning and all her designs, she made a fundamental error in her calculations.” Laughter had faded, but a smile remained.
“This isn’t a cure, Mr. McKnight.” He shook his head and held up the vial, unstopping it and emptying the contents into the drain. Only one vial now remained.
“It’s a vaccine.”
A world of expectations can crumble so quickly, beliefs and visions falling around your ankles like a wet pair of pants.
His statement shattered our hopes for sparing mankind and redeeming the lost and tortured souls that had already succumbed to the malevolent virus. Millions of people were doomed to walk the earth, endlessly hungering and constantly roaming a wasteland of dead and dying. None could be saved.
But a glimmer of hope remained. A vaccine could immunize those still within safe harbor from the threat of infection. Not the threat of harm, or being savagely mauled by their former friends and family. But from suffering a fate worse than death. Those people deserved that chance. I had to try to give it to them.
“Why?” I had to know. And I wanted to keep him talking while I inched slowly to my right, feigning an itch on my leg as I pseudo-stumbled several inches. A vial of unnamed chemicals stood two feet from my right hand.
“Why? Why?” He was incredulous.
I hardly believed my question to be worthy of incredulity, but he clearly believed the answer to recommend itself.
“Oh, I don’t believe we have that much time, Mr. McKnight. My reasons are more than you can hope to comprehend. They are above what you can believe or may wish to know.” His voice was haughty, his tone arrogant. Remembering his office, I took a chance.