We followed Quaid with confidence; his authoritative and upstanding British presence making him the presumptive leader.
The stairwell was still lit and as we descended to the second floor. We tried to avoid stepping in the streaks of blood and crimson footprints smeared on the second floor landing on down to ground level. The door to the second floor was shut and Quaid tried to check the hallway for any immediate danger through the narrow rectangular window. Other than the mutilated corpse of a male nurse, the corridor was empty. Quaid quietly clicked open the door and we sneaked inside. Norris guarded our rear with our shotgun that he’d politely taken from me in the bathroom earlier. The hallway light switch was next to the door and Quaid had the presence of mind to shut off the overheads to minimize our chances of being spotted and attacked, either by remaining personnel or one of the mutated infected he’d let loose earlier.
We stepped over male nurse’s body. His glazed eyes stared up at us with a questioning, surprised expression on his ghostly pale face and we eased into the infirmary where Jamie and I had been held captive earlier. Those five helplessly sedated patients who’d been strapped to beds were in different states of mutilation. The two in the beds nearest the door had their stomachs ripped open, half-eaten entrails were snaking down onto the linoleum floor. The next patient in the middle of the room was now lying horizontal off the bed, his legs dangling out of view and his head hanging from a visible sinewy backbone, his eyes, lips, tongue and cheeks also missing and presumably devoured. But we barely noticed these scenes of horror because the remaining two patients lying beside the windows we had to use for our escape were still alive. They were conscious and squirming against their restraints, gagging at the oxygen tubes in their throats as four mutated Berjalan penyakit tore and chewed at their legs and groin, groaning in ecstasy. One of the patients locked eyes with mine just as his life energy drained away from his body through his punctured femoral artery. At that point, he was beyond pain as he crossed over into death.
The open window Quaid had entered earlier was just beyond the four feasting Berjalan penyakit. We had no choice by try to sneak by.
Really though, it wasn’t that difficult to slip by those zombies. We crept along, careful not to make any noise or sudden movement. They were in the throes of a primal gratification we would, hopefully, never understand; the virus lighting up the pleasure centers of their brain as they chewed on healthy flesh.
Quaid slung the shotgun over his shoulder and slipped over the window seal into the night. Norris kept his gun trained on the nearest of the zombies as Jamie and I followed. We shimmied along to give Norris enough room to get down onto the ledge, which, incidentally, was less than half the width of my rubber boot. Inside Norris’s loafers, his toes were curled into a ball and when he put pressure on his feet and tried to remain steady on that small ledge, pain shot up his legs making him reflexively bleat out a few curses under his breath.
I looked back into the room to see if the infected had heard him and saw that one of them was now squinting towards the window, sniffing the air.
“Go, go, go!” Norris whispered with urgency.
We started shimming along the ledge towards the west corner. As we got further away from the open window, I looked back and saw the Berjalan penyakit’s head sticking out into the night air, his feverish eyes reflecting the moon’s light. Then, the new and improved zombie climbed out onto the ledge and began shimmying towards Norris.
Quaid didn’t know what was happening behind us. He was intent on getting around the tight corner to the utility shed about a three meters leap below. He disappeared around the corner and we shuffled as quickly as possible to where he had disappeared.
Norris was right behind me, crowding against me saying, “Move your ass! It’s getting closer!”
His jostling made me slip and I almost fell, but he grabbed my arm and saved me from multiple broken bones had I fallen onto the hard cement walkway below.
Jamie disappeared around the corner and then it was my turn and then Norris.
Once we are all about midway along the west side wall, Quaid turned, faced the open air and leapt across the gap onto the flat cement roof of a shed, which housed an electrical transformer, back-up generator and power conduits for the hospital. I could hear the undulating hum of the amperage from inside.
Jamie didn’t hesitate, she turned and jumped across and Quaid sort of caught her like a father would their child from a slide at a playground. I jumped next just as the zombie came around the corner and then Norris leapt, tucked and rolled across the tiny building like a pro. He jumped to his feet, flipped the shotgun around from his back and fired two beanbag rounds at the Berjalan penyakit who was readying to take the leap. The zombie lost his footing and fell, arms flailing as he plunged to the pavement below. We heard snap snap crunch sounds as his legs broke in several places. That zombie was intent on his next meal. He rolled over onto his stomach and began pulling himself towards the utility shed with his hands. But we weren’t worried about him now. He was no longer a threat so we walked to the opposite side.
“Firing that gun was a real cock-up.” Quaid told Norris. The sound of Norris’s shotgun had drawn the attention of the remaining Vitura Research personnel hiding below in the yard. The infected chased them as they all came running towards the utility shed.
“Help us, help us!” A lab technician yelled as two infected tackled her from behind.
Quaid grabbed one of the flash grenades and shouted, “Duck and cover!” to us and the remaining two survivors fighting for their lives down below. He pulled the pin and tossed the grenade off the roof near the half-eaten lab tech and crouched down next to the three of us lying on the roof with our hands over our ears.
Even with my ears covered, the bang was loud enough to set off a high pitched whine that faded into a dim ringing that lasted the rest of the night. It was like when you’ve been to a rock concert and stood next to the stage speakers for the encore.
The infected closest to the explosion had taken full impact of the flash grenade, but unlike the bloated infected that were ready to pop at the slightest bump, these zombies didn’t explode. They reacted more like your average human would if hit by a flash bang, they were blinded and dazed, wandering around in random circles.
After concluding that there were no threats directly below, the Ang Mohs slid down the thick electrical cables, holding their ground while Jamie and I followed. Norris gathered up the two surviving pharmaceutical employees wearing their official-looking lab coats and we ran towards the open gate of the drive entrance.
There was a guard station and someone had locked one of the infected inside. He seemed quite frustrated about being held captive, banging and banging against the glass with the full force of his body, his blood and fluids smearing across the door.
We ran underneath the striped car barrier and out onto the dark road that led into town.
Quaid stayed in the lead, barely showing signs of physical strain, a testament to his physical trainer’s body. He turned back to us as he ran and said, “As far as I could tell, when I was doing a little recon before rescuing you all, save for the hospital, the town is totally abandoned. They probably paid off the townsfolk to leave before the infection spread to this area. I’d guess they didn’t want to mess around with questions from the yokels while conducting their research. Isn’t that right, lackeys?” He addressed the two workers jogging next to him that we’d saved earlier and were now sticking to us like glue. One of them nodded as he huffed and puffed along, clearly out of shape from living most of his adult life in the confines of a laboratory.
We ran down a narrow street towards the smell of the ocean ahead and I spotted a sign that said ‘Ferry Jetty’ that gave me hope and I pointed it out to Jamie and Norris as we ran.
Suddenly, there was a loud cacophony of engines behind us and four large trucks filled with Vitura personnel and lab equipment came roaring out of the hospital gate, breaking through the flimsy car barrier and barreling towards us. We jumped out of the road, but not before the first truck clipped the slower of the two lab techs, flipping him into the air and onto the ground. He had his chance. We weren’t in the business of rescuing fools so we just kept running. Do you blame us? It was all about self-preservation at that moment because the remaining fifteen or so infected let loose during Quaid’s jailbreak were sprinting behind the trucks, not just running but sprinting. And once they saw us on the roadside they changed course towards us when the dust settled from the passing vehicles.
When you find yourself running for your life and on the razor’s edge of being eaten by infected jacked up on a mutated form of zombieism, that’s when you find out who you really are. It’s when you discover how deep you can draw from those reserves of fight or flight kept preserved since prehistoric man fought saber-toothed beasts.
We ran, and I ran faster than I thought possible. I hate to mention it, but we caught a break when the remaining lab technician’s legs gave out about half a kilometer from the docks. It happened right when we were on a slight down slope under the light of the crescent moon. The infected out in front attacked him and the other ten or so slowed for a few seconds to see if they could get some, but then continued towards us.
Quaid and Jamie were running together, I was right behind them, but Norris was losing ground from those loafers and his cramped feet. In torch relay fashion, I closed in on Jamie who reached back and handed me a flash grenade, I slowed a bit and handed it off to Norris. Norris pulled the pin and tossed it back and high over his head like a bride throwing her bouquet. Wouldn’t you know it? The Berjalan penyakit that was in the lead actually caught the grenade in his hands!
Boom!
And his zombie hands disappeared in a green mist as well as part of his face. Unfortunately, his body must have shielded those behind him because, while the infected coming up from the rear were caught off guard, they still had their eyes on the prize and rushed around the now lifeless body as it collapsed onto the road.
Maybe they sensed they were about to lose their meal because zombies began to run even faster.
We followed Quaid onto the docks and dashed by a tourist shack advertising speed boats to Pulau Tioman, a resort island off the coast.
I saw Quaid leap into a boat up ahead and yell, “Untie us from the mooring points, girls!” as he started up the engine of an ancient longboat with a monstrous outboard engine jutting out of its rear. Jamie and I got the ropes and unwound them from the dock. Right as we finished untying the ropes, Norris dived into the boat between the two of us, and I pushed us off. Quaid revved the engine and we pulled out of the dock. The remaining infected ran full tilt off the dock towards us and we watched with relish as they drowned in the warm tepid water of the bay.
Quaid angled the boat out away from the shore then turned the boat south. At the southern end of the dock a crane was loading the four trucks that had come from the hospital onto a converted supertanker painted pearl white with Vitura International Research Laboratory printed on its bow.
Our speed boat drew away and we turned to watch the tanker from the aft and saw that our little boat cruising along its hull had drawn a lot of attention on the deck. The deck was well lit and I could make out soldiers in camouflage combat fatigues leaning over the rails, their guns pointed at our tiny vessel. About four stories above them, on a smaller deck in front of the wheel house, I could make our Supervisor Bertrand and a couple of men in lab coats consulting together as they watched us. I pointed to him and said, “Bertrand!” and the others looked upwards to where I was pointing.
He waved down at us as we pulled away into the silky black of the midnight hour, out of the bright lights illuminating that behemoth, which I believed, regardless of Quaid’s misgivings, ferried the apocalypse.
Chapter 12
QUAID leaned over, gently put his hand on my shoulder and shook me awake, “We should be getting close, wake up your friend and keep an eye out for buildings in the configuration of a tropical resort.”
The boat sped along the smooth water without incident.
“Yeah, that was a Mercy class ship alright,” Norris said over the growl of the outboard, “My father served on the USNS Comfort, one of two Mercy class ships in the U.S. Navy fleet when I was a boy. Both of them had been decommissioned long ago but it looks like that’s the USNS Mercy.” He had his bare feet out and was rubbing his toes, he looked up and was surprised to see that the others were actually listening to him, so he continued, “My father grieved over news that his ship was sunk to create a manmade reef to ease some of the high waves off the eastern coast of the US. It looks as if that was a lie and the Mercy had been sold to the highest bidder.”
Jamie and I looked at each other and decided this was the best time to repeat what Supervisor Bertrand had told us about the vaccine, IHS-2 and the conspiracy to reduce the world population and save humanity through targeted outbreaks on undesirable people and countries. We took turns speaking and filling in the places where one of us forgot something or didn’t hear.
Norris looked very concerned, “You know, at the time I couldn’t understand what was going on at that hospital. It had minimal staff and very few patients. Now it makes sense. If they were conducting clinical trials on healthy and infected alike with a vaccine and more potent strain of IHS, yes, it makes sense to do it under the cover of an outbreak. Now that they’ve completed their testing, with that ship I bet they can manufacture the vaccine and grow the new IHS strain while sailing to the targeted area. Then inoculate those deemed worthy and wait off the coast until the contagion has taken it course and burned out,” Norris said nodding at his own theory.