Dr Murphy, still in shock simply nodded. Garcia left the room, flanked by two of the armed guards and headed to the closest containment room where the Hazmat suits and equipment were held. She was obviously well versed in using the equipment as in less than a minute she was fully dressed in an enclosed biohazard suit and making her way to the emergency access staircase. Waiting for her there were four members of the security staff, each wearing the same suits. The only major difference being that each man was carrying a SCAR modular rifle. These futuristic looking weapons were made by Fabrique Nationale de Herstal for the U.S. Special Operations Command. The weapon was the SCAR-L variant, chambered the 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge and perfect for use by military contractors.
“Ready?” she asked.
The four men nodded, locking their weapons. Dr Garcia led the unit down the staircase to the east access point where they waited behind the door. The smoke, dust and chemicals hadn’t been able to penetrate the two sealed doors from the staircase into the corridor. Dr Garcia held out her arm, attached to her suit was a sophisticated looking bio analysis tool. It displayed a sequence of colours and figures describing the environment. After tapping a few buttons she was satisfied that the area was clear and gave the men the nod.
The first man hit a button on the door that slid it open to the side. The scanner picked up nothing untoward through the first airlock so the group entered and closed the door behind them. Once again Dr Garcia double-checked the area, still clear. With a final nod the door opened and the four men burst in, taking up defensive positions around the entrance.
More smoke flooded the corridor as the airflow patterns changed with the opening door. As the dust cleared the guards were shocked to find no bodies on the floor where they had been on the view screens. One of the guards cried out, falling to the ground with two badly injured technicians on top of him. As the guards turned they could see more of the wounded coming towards them. They moved with a bizarre slowness as though they were in the throes of rigamortis as they stepped.
“Fuck me!” shouted the guard to her left as he fumbled with his firearm.
Two of the guards moved in, smashing their rifle butts into the heads of the wounded people. It was bloody work but after several heavy swipes they had reached the injured man. They dragged him back towards the doorway.
Dr Garcia called in on her intercom, “We’ve got a serious problem down here. Something has happened to those exposed. I don’t know if it’s from the security system, or from your sample.”
“What if somebody tampered with the system, maybe pumped something else in to interfere with the research?” asked one of the guards.
Dr Garcia considered his comments for a moment before speaking back into her intercom.
“I suggest we...” she was interrupted before she could finish.
From out of the dust another group of the injured had appeared and this time they were striking with their arms and hands at the group. Though the guards beat them back there was something inhuman about their eyes and movement. As the close quarter fighting continued Dr Garcia bent down to examine the wounded man. His face appeared pale through the protective transparent screen over his head. She was about to touch him with her hand when he started to shake and spasm, classic symptoms of a deadly biological attack of some kind.
The door opened and another four men in Hazmat suits rushed in, two held him down whilst the other two moved into the corridor to help their beleaguered comrades.
Dr Garcia stepped back, keeping away from the trouble whilst she continued her dialogue with Dr Murphy.
“The situation is dangerous down here. It’s getting out of control. I think we have some kind of psycho traumatic outbreak that has affected the people down here.”
“Can you reach the damaged sample?” came back the voice on the headset.
Dr Garcia turned to the left and looked down at the damage in the corridor where the explosion had occurred.
“I’ll take a look,” she said.
She took several steps, moving past the wounded man on the ground as he was being held down. The fighting continued ahead as the guards pushed back the wounded or more likely, the infected. She stopped as one of the guards was overwhelmed and knocked to the floor. Another of the infected victims fell down onto him, clawing at his weapon. The man on the ground must have panicked because a long burst of gunfire poured from his Skar rifle, tearing apart the man trying to attack him. The injured man stumbled back several feet, multiple bullet holes in his chest. Dark blood sprayed against the already scorched walls. He staggered a little more and then stopped. Shaking his arm he proceeded towards the man with the weapon.
“Stun them!” shouted the leader of the tactical guards.
One of the men took out a stun grenade from his belt and pulled the pin. These grenades were special versions, based upon the standard military and police issue items. They were designed with a tiny, non damaging blast radius but could incapacitate enemies at a distance for several minutes. As he moved his hand to throw the weapon another of the infected threw himself at the guard, knocking him back. The grenade fell from his hand, hitting the ground and then bouncing. The guard leapt for the grenade but it was too late. With three quick beeps the device armed itself and then detonated. In the narrow confines of the corridor the effect was devastating. The initial blast, though small, was enough to burn through one the of Hazmat suits. The concussive blast though knocked all of them within five metres to the ground. Though it was designed to stun or incapacitate people it was not intended to be dropped into a group as densely populated as this.
Dr Garcia was stunned by the blast and thrown hard against the wall. The emergency klaxon had kicked in again, adding its monotonous drone to the sounds of movement and people. As she slid to the floor the sound became muffled and dull as the concussion took hold. In just seconds she passed out, the sounds fading until they became nothing at all.
The darkness faded away and light returned to her eyes slowly. It could have been seconds, minutes or even hours, she had no idea. She tried to focus, seeing people and movement off into the distance. Her throat was sore, she badly needed a drink. She tried to move but something was holding her down. She tried to focus, hearing voices and shouting.
Then came the gun shots.
Queensland, Australia
9:00am
Bruce was stumbling out of his Burgundian tent, it had been a heavy night. It was the second day of the medieval re-enactment event. Aching from the day before, and having had rather a large quantity of beer in the night, he stumbled over to a nearby tree to relieve himself, only to notice the organiser’s wife being in plain view. He didn’t care.
It was already fully light and the day was warming up quickly, another sweatfest. Bruce had been re-enacting for over ten years now, it provided a great outlet from his job as a PR consultant. In his job he had to be painfully nice to everyone, when he’d only want to hammer them on the head with a poleaxe, so this hobby suited him well.
Bruce was a married man, though you would rarely know it, his wife spending so much time with her family in England. But this always provided a lot of time for his hobbies, especially as she always took the kids with her. He stumbled several hundred yards over to the toilet block, a luxury he wasn’t always afforded, though this event took place at the local rugby and football club.
Getting to the basin he threw a cupped hand full of water onto his face. The sharp cool shock was a pleasant wake up from the dazed state he was in. He looked up at himself in the mirror. Water dripped from his short beard onto the dirty arming jacket he’d not bothered to remove in the night. The quilted garment was near white when it began life, but was now a greasy and dirty stained mix of black and cream, the result of regular contact with mail armour.
He wandered back to the line of historical tents. Bruce’s closest friends, Dylan and Connor, were sat around a gas stove cooking bacon for brekkie. It was an unavoidable smell for him to pass up, sizzling meat after a beer fuelled night and dehydrated morning.
“Got any going spare?” asked Bruce.
He knew his mates would always have some going for him, but he never liked to make them feel he treated them as slaves, or that he was a bludger, which in many ways he was.
“Of course mate, sit down,” said Dylan.
With bacon in the belly and the sun shining down, the day was quickly firing up, one more day of fun before it was back to the grindstone. By ten o’clock the three had done little to move from their comfortable position. They all knew that the crowds would be flocking in anytime now, but none could be bothered to put any effort in.
“You know we have a battle at eleven, yeh?” said Connor.
“Yeh, suppose it’s about time to armour up,” said Bruce.
“Our numbers are a bit low today aren’t they?” asked Dylan.
“A few people were sick on Friday and cancelled, a couple of others went home last night as they were rough,” said Connor.
“Great, the organiser won’t be happy, I’d be amazed if we can field more than twenty combatants, not exactly an epic battle,” said Bruce.
“Fuck ‘em, the public suck anyway,” said Dylan.
“Well then you should’ve joined the SCA!” said Bruce.
Dylan didn’t respond, just huffed at the response. The group was due to put on a battle re-enactment display shortly, and they were yet to even put away their modern cooker. Finally the three got up and went to work.
Bruce went about fitting his armour, a tricky job without help. He tied up the arming jacket that he was still wearing and sat down with the bag of armour. He started with the cuisses, poleyns and greaves, the leg armour. He then threw over his mail shirt, wriggling to get it to tumble over his body. It was another half an hour before he finally had attached the mail gorget, plate arms and breastplate. It was now just ten minutes until the display and the group was finally approaching a ready state, a lazy display of organisation.
“Come on you bogan bastard!” shouted Connor.
Bruce stood up in a relaxed lazy fashion, unaffected by his friend’s attempts to hurry him along, and happy to continue at the pace he intended. He pulled his gauntlets on and took his poleaxe in hand, but before he began to make a move, Bruce noticed a ruckus forming a hundred yards away where the public had been wandering around the local fair. Taking a few steps closer he could hear the cries of a woman asking for a doctor. He leapt forwards, breaking away from his usual casual and lazy state, for one showing determination.
Breaking through the crowd of people Bruce could see the cause of the problem. A boy was lying on the floor, his father crouched over him. The lad of about eight years old was very pale and sickly, barely able to breathe.
“Are you a doctor?” the mother asked.
“No, but I can help,” said Bruce.
He knelt down beside the boy. The young lad was perspiring heavily, clearly in a feverish state. His breathing had slowed to a feint gasp.
“Have you called an ambulance?” Bruce asked.
“Yes, but it won’t be here for another five minutes, please help him!” the mother said.
The boy coughed harshly and blood splurged out from his mouth.
“What’s his name?” asked Bruce.
“John,” the father responded.
“Ok John, can you hear me?” asked Bruce.
The boy let out his final breath. The audience around him gasped in horror as they saw the boy lose all signs of life.
“He’s stopped breathing, you give mouth to mouth, I’ll give the compressions,” said Bruce to the boy’s father.
The man, in utter panic, began breathing air into his son’s mouth. Bruce began the compressions. The two men cycled the same action again. As Bruce was pushing down on the boy’s heart, he jolted and spluttered.
“Out the way!” said Bruce.
He laid his ear down close to the boy’s head to listen for breathing. He listened intently whilst the crowd was silent around him. The boy’s body jerked up and he bit into Bruce’s collar. He leapt to his feet, the boy still clinging on with his jaw.
“What the fuck!” Bruce shouted.
The boy’s teeth stood no chance of penetrating Bruce’s mail collar, a fact he would truly learn to appreciate before the day was out. He circled around, trying to pull the crazy boy from him.
“Get this bloody bastard off me!” Bruce cried.
The boy’s father took hold of the boy as his mother was shrieking in amazement and horror. The boy released his hold on Bruce, who was thrown to the ground from the sudden balance change. The crazy boy simply did the same to his father as he had attempted with Bruce. This time the child’s jaws were rather more successful, driving hard into the man’s neck, piercing his windpipe. The man collapsed to the ground immediately, his hands cupping the gaping wound, but it was too late. A quickly expanding pool of blood was gathering from around his writhing body.
“Wayne!” shouted the mother.
She ran to his side, but he couldn’t respond with anything more than a deathly stare as he gasped for air. She shot a look of disgust at her son, no longer showing any signs of concern for him.
“What have you done?” she cried.
The crowd could do nothing but stare in utter amazement at the situation. The boy staggered towards his parents, blood pouring from his mouth.
“Stay away from us!” she shouted.
He didn’t stop. The mother put her right arm out to stop the boy, but he simply took hold and bit into the exposed flesh. The mother reeled in pain. Before Bruce could respond, the boy had driven his teeth in to the woman’s neck, the same way he had her husband. Seeing the dire situation before him, Bruce slipped his steel gauntlets back on, full well appreciating what good his armour had already done him.
As the woman tumbled to the ground, Bruce grabbed the boy by his shoulders and threw him aside, away from the woman. He looked down at the bleeding mother and realised she was done for. Bruce looked back at the boy he’d thrown to the ground, the frenzied lad was already back on his feet and stumbling towards Bruce. Now without hesitation, he stood and drove his plate metal gauntlet in to the youngster’s face. The sharp edged metal finger sections of the glove drove through the boy’s soft skulled head, imbedding a couple of inches in. The result was nothing short of a car crash effect. Putting his other hand onto the boy’s lifeless body, he drew the blood soaked gauntlet from his face.