Infected inside

Infected inside (chapter 13)

We slowly made our way across the room and Liam gave me the lead as I was the one who knew where the files were or at least had been. Originally I had kicked myself over and over for burning those files but Danny had adamantly told me that people like the WIC company and certainly with as big an experiment as this would most certainly have a copy of it stored as backup. I led them down the empty corridor and we all jumped when the light above us flickered. We laughed nervously with one another before moving again. I made a right and then a left and entered the third door on the right, Danny being the last one to enter and closing the door quietly behind himself.

When we were sure we were alone and the area was clear we stood up and started to look around. The lab looked the same as before and I went to the desk where I had seen the files, obviously they wouldn’t have still been here so we began searching around in every drawer and checking every shelf, I even checked the storage closet just in case. They weren’t here. “s**t!” I hissed.

Both Danny and Liam looked up at me but it was Liam who had both me and Danny looking at him with interest. “My old mate from the forces, the one I was meant to help.” He looked at me as he said it, making sure I remembered, I nodded and he carried on, “he had been investigating WIC for a while and although he didn’t have enough time to find out everything, I did recall him mentioning a huge room full of files and boxes filled with more files. He said it was based near the owner of WIC’s office, not in the owner’s room but next door or two down.”

Dr. Silvia had come to my room when she had introduced herself so I had no clue where her office could be located, neither of us did but we did at least know that it was in the building somewhere. Great. Liam was in front again while I was back in the middle. He poked his head around the corner and looked both left and right and indicated that it was safe for us to move from the room. We followed him along down the corridor and through a door that led down a staircase. We went down one floor checked it out but there was basically nothing on this floor so we went down another level and checked again but only found a closet for cleaning products and a coffee room. When we went down two more levels we finally found the room we had been looking for, it was actually three doors down from dr.Silvia’s office and we waited quietly while Liam picked the lock.

When he was finally done we crept inside and closed the door behind us before standing up and turning on the dim light. It was dusty enough that I coughed making the guys look at me in annoyance but it was one of those awful tickly coughs, the more you tried not to cough the more your body wanted to. They both rolled their eyes at me and moved off to look along the rows of shelves for the zombie experiment. We had been searching a while when we heard rattling and something scuttling along beside us. Instinctively I reached out and grabbed Liams arm and waited in silence, we heard it again and Liam signed in relief and stood up. Me and Danny still uncertain very slowly stood up with him. He looked at our questioning faces and said, “it’s the big motherfucker, sounds like it’s made its way in between the walls, I don’t know how strong the walls are or if it can break through but we should probably hurry this s**t up and get the hell out of here.”

We went as fast as we could looking through each box filled with files, there were hundreds it would take us all day doing this. “Surely there must be some kind of order to these files?” I asked.

Liam didn’t look up from his pile when he answered, “be my guest at figuring out if that’s true.”

I rolled my eyes and started going through boxes, skimming through everything and then went to the next shelf stacked with boxes and did the same thing. I noticed on this shelf there were more creature related topics like experiments on insects then upto animals and lastly humans. This has to be the shelf we would find it on. “Come help me check out everything on this shelf, from all the files I’ve looked at so far the topic of human experiments are here.”

Danny looked up and said, “wouldn’t it be viruses we are looking for?”

“Maybe but they no doubt would have tested it on humans in the base first before taking it out to the public. Not because they give a s**t about us but because they’d want to make sure it had the right side effects they were looking for or some shit.”

Anger resurfaced in me and I aggressively started going through the boxes again.

Danny was the one who finally found what we were looking for, it was on the very top shelf and I ran over and quickly looked through the files. These were the ones.

We couldn’t run around carrying a box so I took the files and put them in my backpack.

It was time to leave and Liam took the lead while we silently followed. A crash sounded from upstairs somewhere and we all listened intently. More crashing and then screams. We looked at Liam and he said, “it’s inside.”

None of us wanted to go up to where that thing was so we rushed down the stairs hoping it would lead to outside. When we reached the bottom we ran down a corridor and turned left running towards the door that said exit on it.

Liam collapsed to the floor and I knelt beside him. “What’s wrong?”

Smiling weakly he said, “nothing, I’m all good kid.” He pulled himself back up to his feet and I said, “you really need to stop calling me kid, I’m like only five years younger than you.”

He laughed but didn’t say anything and we carried on towards the door when we heard a sound from back down the corridor. It sounded like someone muttering and rushing about. I don’t know why but I found myself going back down the hallway ignoring the calls of Danny and Liam. I turned the corner and walked down until I could see through the see through glass and saw a man. He was dressed in a lab coat in a lab room with glasses and everything, full on science geek look. He was pacing around, picking up some phials and carefully placing them in some cold storage box for protection.

I went in there and he jumped so hard he almost dropped the box. “Is that the zombie virus?” I asked.

He didn’t answer me right away and looked like a deer caught in the headlights. He composed himself, stood straighter and said, “no, this is of no concern to you, you shouldn’t be here.”

“It is of concern to me if I’m going to have to live in a zombie apocalypse type world again,” I snapped.

His eyes grew wider and he looked somewhat excited, “you’re Grace winters? The survivor? I have so many questions.” He put the box down and started making his way towards me until I put a hand up for him to stop. He stopped.

“Liam, did you do that, bring him back to life?”

He nodded yes and I asked, “can you make it so he stays alive?”

He frowned confused at first and then answered, “of course, it took a long time but we finally figured out how but Liam took off before we could proceed.”

Hope filled me at his words and for the first time in a long time I felt butterflies in my tummy, not from fear but from excitement. “Help him, he’s with me so if I bring him you help him?”

I could see the guy looking doubtful and quickly added, “if you do this I’ll answer any questions you have.”

He looked thoughtful and then finally nodded but said, “it took three of us to do what we did, I’m pretty confident I can do it alone but the problem isn’t really me, it’s Liam.”

Liam walked into the room as if on cue and grabbed me by the arm, “what the hell do you think you’re doing Grace! You could have gotten yourself killed.”

He tried pulling me out Of the room but I yanked my arm away from his grip and turned to face him angrily, “there is a way to keep you alive, why wouldn’t you let them do it!” I yelled.

Liam growled his response, “because I didn’t want to be their f*****g lab pet to experiment on, do you really think they would have fixed me up and sent me on my merry f*****g way?”

“Well now you can have this guy do it and we can leave after.”

Liam closed his eyes in frustration and sighing angrily said, “Grace, you are so naive, things like this come with a heavy price.”

I looked at him and waited for him to carry on. When he didn’t I prodded, “and? What is the price that’s too much for your life?”

“Someone else’s.”

The excitement I had from moments ago disappeared and the old familiar gut wrenching ache reappeared. “Please explain,” I whispered, barely able to talk.

“To bring me back fully they would have to use the blood of someone alive, all of it.” He gave me a knowing look until I finally understood.

“So, they had someone to use who was still alive but you didn’t want someone to die for you? That’s why you ran away?”

He nodded solemnly and I fell to my knees in despair. Tears slid down my face and I didn’t bother to wipe them away.

“Please Liam, there must be a way, what if we use the lab guys blood, he’s one of the people who destroyed our lives.” I whispered the last part so lab guy couldn’t overhear. Liam smiled sadly and kneeling down answered, “we would need him to be the one to do it.”

“I can’t lose you again Liam, I just can’t, if you die I’m going with you.” I latched onto his arm and he put his hand over mine, “no, you are going to live and Danny will take care of you, you will be fine.”

I began to sob and spluttered, “but I love you.”

How embarrassing but there you go, I finally said it to him I just wished it had be done in a much more classy way. He came and held me and whispered, “I know, I love you too but the world f*****g sucks and we don’t always get what we want.”

I don’t know how long we had been talking or holding one another but it was long enough that we hadn’t noticed Danny until he said, “well come on then, we don’t have all f*****g day.”

We turned around and saw him hooked up to a machine thing while he sat in the chair, lab guy was reading the machine and nodded to himself when he was happy it was in working order.

“What the hell are you doing!” We both yelled at Danny.

“I’m old, I’m tired, I want to be with my wife. You two are young and still have a long time, the world isn’t done with the two of you yet.”

We both ran to him and started undoing the straps but he thrashed around trying to keep us away and then yelled, “no!” Then he looked at Liam and growled, “she needs you, she needs you more then she needs me. You know that. You’ve both been through s**t that no one not even myself could ever understand. No one will be able to be there for her like you can Liam, you’ve both shared this hellish life together and believe me she was a mess.”

I snorted at that and he muttered, “sorry but it’s true.”

Then he carried on, “you need to be here to take care of her. Besides I don’t have very long left anyways.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

He looked at me apologetically, “sorry Gracie, I didn’t want to upset you. Found out two months ago that I have early onset dementia. I don’t want to be helpless and have other people wiping my backside.” He grew determined again and then in a commanding tone said, “sit down Liam!”

Liam didn’t move until Danny kicked him in the shin. It would have been funny if the circumstances hadn’t been so dire. Liam finally sat down and let lab guy set him up.

“I don’t want to lose you,” I cried and took Danny’s hand in both of mine.

He smiled and gently said, “Gracie, you are one of the strongest people I know, you will get through this and you will have Liam to help you do it. Even if you don’t lose me now, you will soon enough and I want to go out being myself. Please, let me do this, please,” he begged.

I could see he really did truly want this, that it wasn’t just for me and Liam. I looked back at how eager he had been to join me and now I was almost a hundred percent certain he had always hoped to die on this mission.