Dead Hunt (18 page)

Lucy laughed, “Can we go shopping, honey? I
am in need of a new wardrobe.”

“Why of course, my dear,” he answered. “I
hear there’s a lovely boutique just right of that giant hole in the
wall up ahead. If you would be so kind as to lead the way, I will
try not to stare at your butt the entire time.”

She laughed again, then scurried along the
rafters like a mouse. Michael followed along, trying not to fall
through the floor. He was more distracted than he originally joked.
Even in a smelly, old sweater and baggy pants, Lucy looked
breathtaking. And crawling ahead of him on all fours did not
exactly help matters either.

When Lucy got close to the hole in the wall
that led outside, Michael yelled, “Hold up, Lucy!”

She stopped and waited. He crawled up next to
her as she fanned herself with the sweater. Flashes of breast
popped in and out of view.

“Michael,” she put a finger under his chin,
lifting his gaze. “I’m up here.”

“Sorry,” he said as Lucy smiled at his
embarrassment of being caught yet again. “Luce, I…I didn’t get a
chance to…ummm...”

“What is it, Michael?”

“I didn’t get a chance to clean up the
blood.”

Lucy nodded her understanding, and Michael
lowered her into the room below. Lucy slipped on a pool of blood
and landed hard on her ass. She gasped as her eyes widened in
disbelief. Michael dropped next to her and pulled her shocked face
into his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We should have used
the door.”

“No, its ok,” she said, her face still buried
in his chest. “I’ll…I’ll be ok.”

She was lying and he knew it. The room looked
like it had been spray painted with blood. It was the room Lauren
had fallen into, the room where zombies had torn the helpless girl
in half.

After Michael helped Lucy make a run for it,
he spotted the zombies in this room still eating parts of Lauren.
He’d figured he was as good as dead anyway and had nothing to lose
and had gone on a rampage. He’d found a shield and sword hanging on
a wall, a family crest he’d assumed at the time, and though he had
cared little about the shield, he had wanted the sword. It wasn’t
exactly sharp, but when swung like a baseball ball, it had removed
the zombies’ heads easily enough, spraying the walls with their
dead blood.

Michael had run from room to room in a
violent rage, beheading, hacking and killing everything in his
path. He knew they were already dead; he’d just been making sure
they acted dead and did not get back up. Now, as he looked around
at the bloodshed, the memories of the rampage sickened him. He
wondered if he would ever tell Lucy of his zombie massacre.
Probably not.

With her face still buried in his chest,
Michael navigated Lucy out into the hallway and down the stairs to
the ground level. Lucy allowed herself to see where they were going
but still let him put his protective arms around her.

“Now I really need to go shopping,” she said
as she looked at the rear of her blood-soaked pants.

“You could go naked,” Michael grinned
brazenly.

“You wish!,” Lucy laughed as he disappeared
into a room, reemerging with some hospital scrubs a moment
later.

She wasn’t sure why a lab like this needed
scrubs, but she didn’t really care, they looked and smelled clean.
As they walked to the lab, Lucy noticed that a huge desk blocked
the opening where the steel security door came out of the wall. If
Robin was going to lock this place down again, Michael had made
sure he decided on which side of the steel wall he wanted to be on.
Michael was thinking of everything, but she still didn’t know why
he distrusted Robin so much.

“Good morning, Lucy,” Robin said as they
entered the laboratory.

“Hi,” was all she could squeeze out.

“Tell her what you told me,” Michael barked.
It was not like Michael to be so demanding.

Robin looked from Michael to Lucy and began,
“Everyone makes mistakes. Some are small, some are bigger. My
father’s mistake, born of an innocent heart, fueled by sadness, was
the greatest mistake. Some thought the death of his little girl
drove him to the point of insanity. Some thought he was trying to
be God. But this is not how it happened. The truth is he wanted to
save me. To give me life. And, in doing so, everyone was
doomed.”

“I’m heartbroken,” Lucy scoffed. “What does
that have to do with us?”

“As you know, Lucy,” Robin explained,
“Michael has been bitten by an infected person, and, as such, has
become infected himself. He will die.” Lucy’s eyes saddened as
reality hit home just a little bit deeper. She knew Robin was a
computer, but still she sounded so cold. “I can, however, instruct
Michael on how to make an antivirus,” Robin added.

“That’s great!” Lucy said, perhaps a little
too enthusiastically.

“There is one condition,” Robin explained. “I
have discovered through various government agencies that they will
be bombing this island in a hope to purge the virus.”

“How did you find that out?” Lucy asked.

Michael leaned down and informed Lucy, “She
neglected to tell us that she monitors a few hundred radio
stations, short wave transmissions, and encrypted signals through
smaller satellite receivers on the roof.”

“Satellite? Then we could have rigged that
to….” Michael put his finger to her lips to silence her. Damn, he
did it again.

“Remember the cellar,” he mouthed.

“The initial bombing will fail,” Robin
announced. “When it does, they will most likely obliterate this
island completely.”

“You want to save the island?” Lucy asked as
she absentmindedly pulled her wool sweater off and threw it to the
floor.

Michael looked at her in wide-eyed
disbelief.

“No,” Robin responded. “I want to save
me.”

“I don’t understand,” she told Robin.

“If they destroy me, then everything is lost.
All of my father’s work will have been for nothing. My body will
most likely survive the blast in cryo-preservation, but if the
Robin 1 Mainframe is damaged, then all my memories, all of my
father’s work will be lost with it. I cannot allow that to
happen.”

“What do you need me for?” Lucy asked.

“Michael is dying. The compound I have
instructed him to make will only stabilize him for a short time.
Without an antidote he will die. Michael has the knowledge to help
me, but if he decided to wander off to try and find you and did not
come back, then I have no one to help me complete the
transfer.”

“What makes you think I will help?” Lucy
asked.

“You are already helping. You are here.
Michael was most concerned about whether or not the transfer of
bodily fluids would in turn infect the recipient,” Robin
explained.

“You lost me,” Lucy shook her head in
confusion as she slid her blood-stained pants off and let them fall
to the floor. She thought she heard Michael gulp, but she was too
busy concentrating on what Robin was saying to look at Michael.

“The kiss,” Robin explained to her. “Michael
was so upset that he may have infected you with a kiss.”

Lucy’s mind raced back to when she left this
place and how Michael had kissed her goodbye. With that thought she
looked at Michael and noticed his eyes were firmly affixed to the
view of her thong, and he wasn’t about to move his gaze anytime
soon. She looked down at her nakedness and realized that in her
hurry to get out of those smelly old clothes while listening to
Robin’s explanations she hadn’t even realized she was undressing in
front of Michael.

“Am I infected?” Lucy asked, turning her
attention back to Robin as she pulled on the clean pants.

“Not exactly,” Robin answered.

“Not exactly?” You dragged me back to this
place, and the best answer you can give me is ‘not exactly’?” Lucy
was livid.

“She didn’t know at first,” Michael explained
to Lucy. “The only way to know for sure was to test you. Robin
refused to tell me unless I brought you back.”

“So you save me from the monsters when I am
going to become one of them anyway?”

“No!” Michael shifted from his defensive tone
to a demanding voice she’d never heard before.

It made her jump. It made her listen.

“That computer bitch has the answers and
would not tell me or help me until I brought you back. I couldn’t
bear the thought that the person I love may be infected and
spreading this disease without even knowing it, or worse, knowing
she is spreading it and unable to stop it!”

Lucy pulled the top of the scrubs on. “Unable
to stop it? I don’t understand,” Lucy said, looking deep into
Michael’s sad eyes.

“Love,” Robin said, “is an emotion I do not
fully understand. Humans will do anything to protect the person
they love. At first, I could not understand why my father worked so
hard on his project. I learned it was because he loved me so much
that nothing else mattered. I knew if Michael felt that same love
towards you, he would do anything for the promise to be with you
again. I simply gave him that promise.”

“Am I infected?” Lucy asked again.

“You are infected Lucy. But, unlike those
other creatures, you are a host. You will not turn into one of
them. You will create them.”

Lucy looked at Robin, then to Michael not
fully understanding.

“That’s why I had to bring you back, Luce,”
Michael explained.

“If someone drinks from your glass,” Robin
explained, “They will be infected. If they eat from your plate,
they will be infected. If they kiss….”

“They will be infected,” Lucy finished. “I
get it. How is this even possible?”

“The original virus did not enter Michael’s
digestive system,” Robin explained. “It was a mutated strain that
was introduced directly into his blood system from the bite. His
white blood cells tried to break down the virus so the virus
re-adapted to survive. When Michael kissed you, the mutated strain
transferred to you. Your blood was not infected because you did not
get bitten, nor did you ingest the original strain. The virus
re-adapted itself to your untainted blood to make you a host. The
virus will protect the host and let you do the rest.”

“I don’t understand,” Lucy said, looking from
Robin back to Michael again.

“Lucy,” Michael rubbed her cheek gently. “You
can’t die.”

“Well, I didn’t plan to, if that’s what you
mean.”

“No, Lucy,” Michael told her softly. “You
cannot die.”

She looked at him puzzled.

“Lucy, you are unable to die.” Michael
explained, “I could stab you in the heart right now and it would
not kill you. The virus won’t let you die. It needs you alive, so
it will protect you. It needs you to spread the infection to
others!”

“Stab me in the heart?” Lucy asked, more
confused than ever.

“It will hurt,” Michael told her. “It will
probably hurt like hell, but it will not kill you. You are the
host, and the virus needs you to live.”

“Great,” Lucy said, barely audible as
realization set in. “I got it. I’m the four horsemen rolled up into
a perky cheerleader with a deadly kiss. But why am I here?”

“To be cured,” Robin answered. “Once you and
Michael complete the transfer I will instruct Michael how to make
the antidote. With it you can save yourself and humanity.”

“What if I don’t believe you?” Lucy told her.
“What if I just say ‘Fuck it!’ and let them bomb me? Surely, I
can’t live through that?”

“They are not bombing you, Lucy,” Robin
informed her. “They are bombing the island. If the bomb does not
land almost directly on top of you, you will most likely survive.
You will be badly burned with radiation. You will feel extreme
pain, but you will live. The bombs are ineffective against the
virus. It is water-based, and it can travel through fresh water at
lightening speeds. Every time it rains it spreads that much faster.
By now this entire island is infected. The only thing keeping the
virus from spreading to the mainland is the salt water that
surrounds it. But, once they made the announcement when the island
was going to be bombed, thousands of people fled the island. If one
infected person gets off the island, the entire continent will be
lost because there will be nothing to stop the spread.”

“Wait,” Michael asked, “what
announcement?”

Robin played an audio recording.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Clay Buffer
for ATN News with this important Emergency Broadcast. We will be
going off the air immediately following this broadcast. The M Virus
has grown to epidemic proportions. The Prime Minister has ordered
the complete sterilization of Cape Breton Island. I repeat, The
Prime Minister has ordered the complete sterilization of Cape
Breton Island. The US National Guard and the Canadian Armed Forces
are posted at the Causeway to assist in the evacuation. The Prime
Minister has authorized the use of nuclear force to kill the M
Virus. Get to the causeway if you can! May God have mercy on us
all.”

“My primary concern,” Robin told them, “is
that my father’s work is completed.”

“What do you want us to do?” Michael asked as
Lucy curled into his arms.

Robin looked from Lucy to Michael and said
simply, “To give me life.”

CHAPTER 20 – The Awakening

They didn’t have much time. Robin told them
the bombing was to commence at 2300 hours. The military was waiting
for the winds to shift so the fallout would blow east and dissipate
harmlessly over the Atlantic Ocean. It was noon, so that gave them
eleven hours to do what Robin wanted and get their collective asses
to the Causeway.

Robin’s plan, in theory, was relatively
simple, due mostly in part because her dear father, the late
Professor Heslin, had already planted the necessary seeds. The
cryo-preservation canister had its own computer that was already
programmed to ‘wake’ the real Robin when he activated it, and it
was programmed to download all the data in the storage drives to a
tiny chip that he implanted in the real Robin’s brain. Heslin
wanted all the conversations he and Robin had to be implanted into
the real Robin’s brain as memories.