Days 101 to 108 (Mass Extinction Event Book 7) Page 8

  “You're not sleep-walking, are you?” he says cautiously. “Lizzie?”

  I want to turn to him, but I'm afraid something terrible will happen if I do.

  “Lizzie.”

  He pulls slightly on my shoulder, but I resist.

  “Lizzie, you know this isn't really happening, don't you?” he continues. “Don't be scared. Remember how you hallucinated Bob? This is like that, except it's more important because I have something to tell you. Lizzie, hurry. There isn't much time left.”

  I pause, before slowly turning and – with a great sense of shame in my gut – looking up at my father's face.

  “There's my beautiful girl,” he says, reaching down and touching my chin. He sounds sad. “Everyone's going to die, Lizzie. We can fight it, but the end's coming and fighting just means prolonging the agony. Instead, you should just give up. Let yourself die. I want you to stop fighting and just surrender to the inevitable.” He runs a finger up the side of my face, and then he brushes some hair aside and tucks a few strands behind my ear. “Die, Lizzie. Right now. I want you to die. It's so easy to do.”

  He leans closer and whispers in my ear.

  “Just let go.”

  Thomas

  “They're at various stages of infection,” Carter explains as I step closer. “That one on the left is nicknamed Adam, because he's the first one I got my hands on.”

  I stare at the cage on the left, where a rotten male figure is clinging to the cage wall while struggling to stay on his feet. He looks absolutely terrible, as if he's almost rotted completely away, and after a moment I realize that I can see his legs at the bottom of the cage, as if they've fallen away.

  The smell is disgusting.

  “I have some sentimental feelings about Adam,” Carter continues. “I keep him as a control specimen for now, but at some stage I'm going to administer my formula to him and see -”

  Before she can finish, Adam lets out a loud, angry snarl that quickly fades to become a harsh, dry splutter.

  “Sometimes I think he knows I'm talking about him,” Carter says. “I know that can't really be true, though. You see, it's important to recognize one's own weaknesses, Thomas. Nobody's perfect, everyone has failings. Idiots try to ignore their failings, to become perfect. To be truly great, one must recognize one's failings, and perhaps even try to use them to one's advantage. It helps to be able to stand outside yourself occasionally and observe, to be harshly honest about what you're doing.”

  “Why have you got these things here?” I ask, taking a step back as I look at the middle cage.

  “They're perfectly safe,” she replies. “They're secured.”

  I take another step back.

  “The middle one is Eve,” she continues. “I trapped her much later, after I got hold of Adam. As you can see, she's not so far gone.”

  Staring at the middle zombie, I can see that she still has most of her skin left, and even most of her jet-black hair. She's clinging to the side of the cage, like Adam, but her legs are still attached and after a moment I can't help noticing that she's staring straight at me as she reveals her teeth in an angry snarl.

  “Don't take it personally,” Carter says. “She always focuses her attention on new arrivals, at first. She probably finds me boring by now. She's certainly seen enough of me.”

  “This isn't right,” I tell her. “You can't keep them caged like animals!”

  “Of course I can,” she replies quickly. “And the third specimen, over there on the right, is John. Now, in John's case the name is his real name.”

  As she speaks, the male figure in the third cage turns to look at us. He's been hunched naked in the cage's far corner so far, but the mention of his name seems to have attracted his attention.

  “You won't like this, Thomas,” Carter continues, “but John was one of the specimens who arrived after finding Polly on the road. This was a few weeks ago. He came up here and, well, he was too valuable to be allowed to leave. At first I thought he had the immunity, but it turned out that he was merely slow to react to the sickness. As you can see, he's now starting to waste away, which is fascinating in a certain sick way. I've learned so much from him.”

  I stare at the man for a moment, too horrified to look away. He's by far the most 'normal' of the three caged figures, although there are several dark blotches on his back and his eyes are filled with hatred as he stares out at me. And then, suddenly, he snarls and lunges forward, slamming into the bars and trying to reach through for a few seconds before falling back.

  “That happens a lot,” Carter explains. “He gets these little bursts of energy that -”

  “I want to see Elizabeth,” I say firmly, as I feel a slow sense of dread starting to rise through my body. “Right now.”

  “Why? What are you scared of?”

  “What have you done to her?”

  “What do you think I've done to her?”

  Staring at her, I can't help but fear the worst.

  “If you've hurt her,” I say finally, “I swear I'll make you pay.”

  “I haven't hurt her,” she replies. “Hand on heart, Thomas, I wouldn't lie to you. And before you ask, I haven't done anything as ridiculous as infect her with the sickness, either.”

  “Then where is she?”

  “She's resting. You can see her soon.”

  “Why can't I see her now?”

  “What is she to you, Thomas? Why do you care?”

  Before I can answer, I hear a loud snarling sound, and I turn just as Eve throws herself against the bars. I flinch and step back as she reaches out toward me, but of course she has no chance of actually getting close. She seems furious, though, and I can't help but watch as she rages against the bars for several more seconds. Just as I think she might be about to stop, she slams her left hand against one of the bars and, in the process, snaps one of her fingers. At this, she lets out a renewed howl of anger, and it takes several more seconds before she finally slumps back down against the floor of the cage.

  “Can they think?” I ask.

  “Of course not.”

  “But how do you know?” I turn to her. “I think on some level Jane maybe remembered who she'd been.”

  “Jane?” She furrows her brow. “Who's Jane?”

  “I told you already!” I say firmly, angered by her lack of care. “Jane's the girl you made us catch for you the other day!”

  “Ah, the one you burned to death.”

  “I put her out of her misery!”

  “You do seem to latch onto these poor lonesome females,” she replies. “Tell me, Thomas, is that a particular character trait of yours?”

  “I think they're still in there somehow,” I tell her. “I saw it with my brother, back when all of this started. Even when they're zombies, there's some remnant trapped inside, some reminder of who they used to be.”

  “I considered the possibility,” she replies, “but I dismissed it as a romantic dream.” She pauses. “However, I later came to realize that there might be some truth to the idea. Not in the case of poor Adam, of course. He's so far gone, he's barely even a zombie anymore. I'm just waiting for him to turn to dust. Eve's more difficult to check, but there might be some flickers of recognition. I usually deny all of this, of course, but I think I can tell you what I really think.” She pauses again. “At least in the early stages, there does indeed seem to be some residual element of the original mind.”

  “Then how can you torture them?” I ask.

  “Because it's necessary.”

  “But -”

  “Science demands it,” she adds, interrupting me. “Hate me. Despise me. Whatever, I don't care. I'll do anything and everything I can in order to find this cure, and after that history can judge me. I invite that judgment. But I won't stop at anything, Thomas. There's nothing I won't do in order to end this nightmare.”

  “You're crazy,” I tell her.

  “Tell yourself that, but you're exactly the same as me.”

  I shake my
head.

  “You burned a girl to death three days ago,” she points out. “You claim there was some trace of her soul in her body, yet you set fire to her.”

  “To save her!”

  “And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. To save people.” She smiles. “I'm just doing it on a grander scale. At least I'm not a murderer, Thomas. Not like you.”

  “What are you talking about?” I spit.

  Reaching into her pocket, she takes out a vial of clear liquid.

  “If you hadn't burned that poor Jane girl to death,” she continues, “I was going to administer this to her. And I'm certain that by now she'd have turned back to normal.”

  Elizabeth

  Opening my eyes, I suddenly find that daylight is streaming down. Funny, I don't remember night ending, I don't remember much at all, but now I'm shivering and I'm on the ground outside, on a bed of wet leaves.

  I think there must have been rain.

  I blink a couple of times, and then I see another pair of eyes looking toward me. It takes a moment before I realize that there's a dead little bird right in front of my face. I stare at the poor thing for a few seconds, and then I begin to sit up. I don't know how long I've been out here, but I feel really stiff and sore, and I have to sit still for a little while as I try to get my head together. And then I see more birds.

  There are hundreds of them, all around me. And all of them are dead.

  Thomas

  “You're a liar!” I snap as I storm back toward the chamber. “There's no reason why I should believe a word you say!”

  “I couldn't reveal my true motives!” she calls after me. “Idiots would have tried to stop me, like they tried before all of this happened! But I'm right, Thomas! I can do this!”

  Stopping, I look back at her. There's a part of me that wants to go right over and wipe that grin off her face.

  “There have been several iterations of the cure,” she continues, “and each time they've been getting closer and closer to perfection. There have been a few unwanted side-effects for some of the sufferers, but I've got everything worked out now. You can hate my methods all you want, but my results are beyond reproach.”

  “I want to see Elizabeth,” I tell her. “No more excuses.”

  She opens her mouth to reply, but then she hesitates for a moment before finally shrugging.

  “Go and find Musgrave,” she says. “He'll show you to her. I've got work to do down here, and it's far more important than baby-sitting you while you're struggling with basic concepts. Get back to me when you finally understand the importance of my work down here, child.”

  With that, she turns and heads back around the corner, and after a moment I'm left standing all alone and listening to the distant sound of zombies thrashing about in cages.

  My mind is racing, and I still don't quite know exactly what Carter's doing here. I refuse to believe, however, that she's telling the truth about Jane Kincaid; Jane might have had a degree of recognition when it came to her own name, but she was too far gone to ever recover. That vial in Carter's hand might as well have been water for all I know, and I'm still convinced that what I did to Jane was the only proper, human response to her plight. I didn't murder her. I saved her.

  And now I'm going to save Elizabeth.

  Turning, I head back through to the chamber, where Musgrave and his creepy daughter are looking at another sample at one of the benches.

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  Musgrave turns to me.

  “Where's Elizabeth?” I continue. “She told me I'm allowed to see her now.”

  He stares at me for a moment, as if he doesn't understand, and then he rolls his eyes and looks back down at his work.

  “She'll either be outside,” he mutters, “or perhaps in the reception area. Remember, she doesn't know about this facility down here, so you'll have to go and find her.”

  “If she's not up there,” I reply, “I'm going to come back down here and... and...”

  For a moment, I can't think of a threat to make. Finally, filled with impotent rage, I shove everything from the top of the counter and send it smashing to the floor.

  “Hey!” Musgrave shouts as I storm out of the chamber. “Are you a complete idiot? For all you know, those could have been samples of the virus itself!”

  He's right, but right now I only care about one thing, and that's finding Elizabeth. I have no idea whether Musgrave was lying about her whereabouts but, as I hurry up the stone steps, I can't shake a feeling of panic. If Elizabeth's still nowhere to be found, I have no idea how I'm going to force the truth out of Carter and Musgrave, but one thing's for sure: I won't let her end up in one of those cages.

  Once I'm back up in the main building, I hurry to the reception area and then I run down the steps at the front.

  Stopping, I look all around, but so far I don't see any sign of anyone.

  “Elizabeth!” I call out, while cupping my hands around my mouth. “Where are you?”

  This is hopeless.

  I've done this before, and I didn't find her.

  “Elizabeth!”

  Still hearing no response, I make my way along the side of the building. I'm starting to feel frantic, but at the same time I know I need to search one more time. I start running, desperate to get to the building's far end, although after a moment I stop as I feel a crunching sensation under one foot. Looking down, I'm horrified to see that I've once again crushed a dead bird under my shoe, but this time I tell myself that there's no time to stand around moping.

  I run to the corner and stop, and I put my hands around my mouth.

  “Elizabeth!” I shout. “Where are you?”

  “Thomas?”

  Startled, I spin around and see that she's standing over by the tree-line.

  “Thomas,” she says, taking a limping step toward me before stopping again, “I...”

  She pauses, and in that moment I realize that something's wrong.

  She's sick.

  She's sweating profusely, so much so that her hair is all matted, and she looks decidedly off-color. In fact, she reminds me of the way Lydia looked a few months ago, right before she died.

  She takes another step toward me, and then she slips and falls, letting out a grunt as she lands hard on the ground.

  I hurry toward her, but then I stop as she looks up at me.

  She's one of them.

  Her eyes are yellow and the edges of her mouth a tinged with red, and after a moment her features begin to twist and shift until she's letting out a low, angry snarl.

  “Thomas,” she gasps, “I...”

  And then, with no further warning, she growls and lunges at me.

  Day 104

  Elizabeth

  It's Thomas!

  Filled with relief, I take a step toward him, but then I stop as I realize that something's wrong. I'm suddenly hungry, hungrier than I've ever felt before, and in an instant I'm filled with the need to eat. My body feels so old and withered and dry, as if it's dead, and I need blood to bring myself back to life.

  “Thomas,” I gasp, “I...”

  Before I can finish, the sensation overwhelms me. I rush forward and lunge at Thomas, landing against his chest and then reaching down to bite his throat. And even though I hate the idea of hurting him, I'm driven by the absolute certainty that I need his blood.

  Thomas

  Slipping out of her grasp, I stumble away across the grass and then I turn.

  She's already coming for me again.

  “Elizabeth,” I stammer, “don't -”

  It's too late. She lunges at me, reaching for my throat, and I have to take several steps back to avoid her. She stumbles as she tries to get me, and then she falls. Letting out another snarl, she seems for a moment as if she doesn't understand how to get back up.

  “Thomas,” she groans. “Please -”

  In an instant, the anger returns. She reaches for me and, in the process, she topples over and lands hard on the grass.
<
br />   I take more steps back, but already it's pretty clear that she's too slow to actually catch me.

  She's one of them.

  As she struggles again and again to get back to her feet, I watch with a growing sense of horror as I realize that all my worst fears were true. I don't know how it happened, or how it happened this fast, but Elizabeth is one of those creatures now. She must be right at the start of the transformation, which seems to be going much more quickly than usual. I remember how sick my mother was at the start, but Elizabeth looks to have changed almost overnight.

  “It's rather pathetic, isn't it?” a voice says suddenly.

  Turning, I see Sarah Carter standing nearby, with her arms folded across her chest as she watches Elizabeth's continued struggles.

  “You said you hadn't infected her!” I snap, getting to my feet. “You lied to me!”

  “Absolutely not,” she replies. “I didn't infect her.”

  “But -”

  “Musgrave infected her,” she adds, “as part of his program to keep testing the cure. I told him it was too early, and that as a friend of yours Elizabeth should be spared, but unfortunately Doctor Musgrave can be a little narrow-minded.”

  She steps past me, confidently approaching Elizabeth and then throwing a lasso of rope around her neck and pulling tight.

  Elizabeth gasps and reaches for her, but quickly falls again.

  “She's still unsteady,” Carter explains as she ties the other end of the rope to a hook on the side of the building. “At the moment she's not really that dangerous at all, but eventually she'll become more mobile. This transition phase can be rather unpredictable, but Elizabeth seems to have been in fairly good health so she's changing fairly fast. I suppose, in a morbid way, I should be impressed.”

  “He did this to her on purpose?” I reply, horrified by the idea. “What kind of -”

  “Careful!”

  She grabs my arm and pulls me away, and I turn to see that Elizabeth has managed to crawl a little closer. She's reaching out toward me, and I'm shocked by the sight of her blood-red eyes. For a moment, she barely even looks like herself, and I'm shocked by the way that she's transformed into this snarling, angry monster. And then, as she reaches a little further, the rope around her neck pulls her back, restraining her and causing her to let out an angry groan.