“What kind of breakthrough?” Wilder asks.
Butsko turns to meet Wilder’s gaze. “I’ve already told you too much. Your security hasn’t officially cleared yet, and even then, I’m already telling you more than your clearance allows for.”
Wilder’s blood is beginning to rise. “You want my help, George?” he asks coldly. “If so, then I need to know what the fuck I’ve gotten myself and my men into.” Their eyes are locked in a showdown. “This facility is just about the scariest place I’ve ever seen. Part of me doesn’t even wanna know what the fuck is being tested and researched in here.” Butsko starts to turn his head. “But,” Wilder almost shouts, “if you need my help like I think you do, then you have to level with me. What kind of threat are we dealing with here?”
Butsko removes his hat and runs his scarred hand through his thinning hair. “We don’t know yet, Dan. That’s the problem. We just don’t know yet.”
“That’s not a good enough answer, George,” Wilder says.
“This project, Project Overman, started off with one goal, and then that goddamn lab outside of Austin hit a breakthrough. Now it seems as though the project has its own goal and we’re playing fucking catch up trying to find out what that goal is.” Butsko suddenly looks very old and tired. “We’ve been destroying these animals,” he says as his hand sweeps around the room, “and studying them to find that goal.”
“Have all the animals from that lab been neutralized?” Wilder asks, afraid of what the answer might be.
After a long pause, Butsko looks up. “No, Dan,” he says. “All the animals have not been neutralized.” A heavy silence falls between them. “There are still an undisclosed amount of animals out there. They could be dead. or they could be roaming around in some neighborhood.” He exhales a long sigh. “Or even worse.” “Let me guess,” Wilder asks, trying to fill in the gaps of information. “Those animals are what attacked that guy in the van? That guy who seemed to come alive halfway through the trip?”
“Yes, Dan,” Butskoanswers
.
“Those animals which are still out there are capable of attacking and killing anyone they come into contact with.”
“Then why the fuck are we just standing here? We need to be out there knocking on doors and putting up posters about some bullshit rabies outbreak. At the very least, we can warn people about not picking up stray animals.”
“The rabies story has been running on the news for the last day and a half,” Butsko says. “We’re here because we need to determine what the hell those animals are carrying.”
“Fucking hell,” was all Wilder can come up with.
“Yeah, Dan,” Butsko echoes. “Fucking hell.”
“Let’s get to work,” Wilder says as he starts walking to the door.
7
The woods around the Austin Zoo
We are all still staring at Brice and Jason. We all want to ask him the same question, but I don’t think anyone really wants to know the answer. Finally, Julie breaks the silence.
“So what exactly did Jason release?” Julie asks, barely above a whisper.
“It’s not that easy of an answer,” Brice starts. “You have to understand that the original parameters of the study were completely shattered with the breakthrough we experienced at the Hudson Research Lab.” He looks around and sees he has the attention of every single one of us. Even Fi seems to be hanging on his every word. “We were set with the task of how to save lives, lives of wounded soldiers on the battlefield. With the technology we have today, we were doing an okay job of saving them in the theater, but we were losing a large percentage of our soldiers when they were sent back home. The long journey was just too much for gravely-injured soldiers, and they were dying from their injuries before their planes even touched down on U.S. soil.” Brice seems very genuine in his emotions as he tells his story. I am starting to believe that this mess we are in was caused by good intentions.
“So,” Brice continues, “we came up with the theory that if we could somehow put the mortally-injured soldiers into an immediate state of stasis on the battlefield, then transport them back to the U.S. to get treatment, we could save a whole lotta lives.”
“What do you mean by ‘stasis’?” Jason asks.
Brice looks around. We all hear noises from the trees. “Do you really think now is the best time for stories?” he asks nervously.
“This may be the only time we have left,” I reply, purposely sounding overly dramatic. “Look,” I continue. “Any info you can give us about these things could help us kill them.”
“Kill them?” Brice almost laughs. “You want to kill them? No, no, no. We need to figure out where they are and then run in the opposite fucking direction, and fast.”
“You fucking coward!” Susan screams. “We need to find our children!”
“Find your kids?” Brice’s words fade away. “You mean they took your kids?”
“Yes,” Julie answers. “These animals have been attacking and killing the adults. It’s like they’re killing us in order to distract us while other animals slip in and steal the kids.”
“That’s…” Brice is at a loss for words. “That’s amazing.”
Wrong choice of words
, I think.
“Amazing? Amazing?” Susan stands now and begins walking toward Brice. “You think it’s
amazing
that these fucked up animals are taking our children away and doing God knows what to them?”
“No, no… I’m sorry,” Brice apologizes. “I don’t mean it like that. It just seems their behavior and intelligence is growing and evolving beyond the level of basic survival.”
“Hold on,” I interrupt. “Why don’t you go back a step. Tell us what you meant by ‘putting the soldiers in a state of stasis.’”
Brice’s eyes are constantly scanning the woods around us. “Okay, let me put it in basic terms. Shrimp boats go out to sea for weeks at a time, right?” We all nod. “Now, how do you think they keep the shrimp they catch on the first day as fresh as the shrimp they catch on the last day? I’ll tell ya. They have this huge machine that individually freezes the shrimp as soon as they’re caught.” He pauses to see if anyone is going to make the connection, but when no one does, he goes on. “The shrimp are glazed with a thin layer of water and then individually flash frozen when they’re still alive in order to preserve the maximum amount of freshness.”
“Oh my God,” I say out loud as I realize where this is going. “You were trying to freeze injured soldiers on the battlefield, weren’t you?”
“Not quite,” he replies. He seems to be getting excited at explaining and talking about his research. “We couldn’t freeze them. There was too much irreversible damage on the cellular level. Instead, we theorized we could put them in a state of chemical stasis; one analogous to flash-freezing the shrimp.” He looks around. “Now, before you get this image of the mad scientists locked away in their mad scientist labs, I can tell you that this was successfully being done on animals.” He purposely looks at Jason when he says this last part. “Dogs were placed in this state of chemical stasis and then revived hours later. Just think about how many lives we could save if we could translate this to humans. A soldier steps on a land mine and gets half his body blown apart. Up until now, he’s a dead man. But if we could immediately place him in that state of stasis, his heart rate would all but stop, thereby preventing him from bleeding to death. He wouldn’t be in pain, thereby eliminating his body from going into shock, and he would be revived back in the U.S. at a state-of-the-art hospital already fixed up. He wouldn’t have to experience any of the surgeries and his body could repair itself.”
We all just stand in silence. “That’s fucking crazy,” Jason finally says. “You’re talking science fiction.”
“No,” Brice cuts him off. “We’re talking about real, cutting-edge science being used to save lives.”
“So what happened during those experiments that resulted in these messed up animals?” I ask, trying to get to the part of the story that can possibly save us.
Brice’s eyes take on a vacant stare. “We had a breakthrough. At least, we thought it was a breakthrough.” No one says anything. “We decided to take it a step further and attempt to heal the soldiers while they were in stasis and on their way back to the U.S.”
“Okay,” I say hesitantly. “Why not?”
“I’ll tell ya why,” Brice’s voice becomes dark. “Because that’s when everything got fucked up and out of control.”
“We’re listening,” Julie says calmly. We all sense it. It feels like we are starting to lose Brice. He’s giving us good information, but he’s really not giving us anything that we can use to fight these things off.
Brice looks at Julie: “We went too far. We were only trying to save lives, but we took it too far.”
“Took
what
too far?” Julie asks, getting angrier. “What did you do in that lab?”
Brice has no time to answer. No one sees it coming, not even Brice. The tiger comes tearing out of the trees just to the right of where Brice is sitting. That fucker is moving so fast it looks like it is flying through the air. Brice’s eyes are still fixed on Julie when the tiger slams into him. Its powerful jaws clamp down around Brice’s chest. We can all hear Brice’s ribs cracking as the tiger’s jaw snaps shut. In one fluid motion, it picks Brice up and sweeps him off into the woods. It happened so quickly that Brice didn’t even have time to react, but as the tiger disappears into the woods, we all hear the panicked and pained screams coming from Brice.
“Everyone protect the kids!” I scream as I grab Fi and hug her to my side.
The woods around us come alive. Sounds of shaking trees and breaking twigs and branches tell us the tiger isn’t alone. I can only imagine that we are all thinking the same thing – that they’ve come back to get the rest of the kids. I think our search is over. We aren’t going to find the kids. It’s beginning to feel as if no one is going to find any of
our
bodies.
A deer comes racing out of a thicket of bushes to our right. At least, it looks like a deer. It has saucer-sized eyes that are full of death and hunger. It races by where Susan and her last child are. Susan’s daughter, Karen, starts screaming. As the deer gets closer, one of the Patas monkeys from the zoo drops out of the tree and lands on Susan’s head. It appears the animals were working together: the monkey running interference to distract the adults while the deer goes for the kids.
The monkey’s claws sink into Susan’s head and neck as she tries to throw it off. She screams and thrashes around. Thick rivers of blood run down her cheeks and neck.
Meanwhile, the deer races towards Karen. Karen is frozen in fear. She is watching this crazed deer racing toward her and as that monkey is tearing apart her mother’s head. As Susan reaches up to try to grab the monkey’s tail, the beast sees her injured arm and, in a calculated move, reaches out and runs its claws down it. Susan screams as her arm is flayed open a second time. The pain makes her weak in her knees and she drops to the ground. The monkey has started tearing out clumps of her hair and scalp. It almost seems to be do this to warn the rest of us away.
Jason stands, shocked like the rest of us at the ferocity of the attack, but runs to Karen when he sees the deer knock her over and sink its teeth into her leg. Jason picks up a large rock and begins beating the deer in the ribcage. The deer doesn’t even seem to notice Jason’s assault. Its attention is focused on Karen. It bends down and bites Karen again, this time in the other leg.
Jason is beating the deer with all his strength. Surely he should have cracked a rib or two by now. Then, out of nowhere, a grey streak races towards him. He turns with the rock in his hand to confront the new threat, but the wolf rams straight into his chest, knocking him to the ground.
“Stay with Fi!” I shout to Julie as I race over to try to help Jason.
“No Daddy!” Fi screams.
I run to the spot where I thought I saw Jason and the wolf tumble. My eye is all but useless now, but I can still see that the wolf is on Jason’s chest. I take the knife out from its sheath, still bloody from the wolf Brice killed. Seeing that blood gives me hope. We saw one of these fuckers die, and that means we can kill another one.
I lunge forth with the knife leading the way.
About eight feet away, Jessica is huddled over her son, Bill Jr., afraid to leave his side. The tiger that just took away Brice is back. She knows it is the same tiger because its mouth and fur are covered in blood and it still has pieces of Brice’s clothing in its mouth. Jessica starts to panic, but her survival mode kicks in and tells her that if she doesn’t get it together, she can kiss her son and her own ass goodbye.
She grabs Bill Jr. and runs to the nearest tree. “Get in the tree, Billy!” she screams. She lifts him up and pushes him onto the first thick branch. “Climb as high as you can, Billy, and don’t come down until I tell you it’s safe.” Billy reluctantly starts climbing the tree. Jessica knows the tiger could scale after him, but she has to do something. She can’t just leave her son sitting around on the ground and wait for him to be picked off.
Jessica turns to see the tiger crouched low to the ground in an attack pose. She looks around and finds nothing she can use as a weapon. She closes her eyes, waiting for the beast to leap on her. She sees her husband behind her eyes. “No!” she screams. “I can’t let this thing take my baby.” Her hand is resting on the same branch she put Billy on seconds ago. She looks up and sees Billy has gotten pretty far up the tree. She grabs the branch and, with the strength of a mother fighting for her son’s life, tears the branch from the tree. She closes her eyes and holds it in front of her like a jousting pole.