Fever (Flu) (3 page)

She leaned in close, and he could smell her perfume. It was very different to the perfume his wife would wear; hers was floral, musky, saccharine, like dried up flowers wilting in the sun. But this young girl reminded him of youth, of vitality and colour. Of nice things, like dessert and chocolate and sweet ale—things Johnson longed for but, since his operation, could no longer have.

“Sir,” she said, and her voice was as pleasant as her perfume, “I need to show you something.”

“What is it?”

“Please sir,” she said. “Probably best you see it firsthand...”

She looked nervous. A red blush, starting around her cheeks, was spreading down her neck.

Johnson sighed. He turned back to his computer, called up the user menu, typed in his password to lock the screen. He got up, stood for a moment then retrieved a pen from the holder by his monitor. He tucked the pen into the front pocket of his lab coat.

“Okay,” he said to her, “Lead the way.”

He followed the girl out of the admin block, down Corridor B4 towards the labs. His eyes were drawn to her lab coat fluttering in front of him, offering a glimpse of her shapely legs.

She used her card to exit B Block. They continued through the complex, passing through C and D Blocks. Johnson noticed very few people on his travels. When they reached the security door to E Block, he realised why he hadn’t spotted anyone: through the heavy door’s strengthened glass, he could see most of his staff team filling the corridor.

Johnson looked suspiciously at the girl. This was out of bounds. Only the Contract Boys were allowed in here, a term used to describe staff with the highest level of security clearance.

The girl ran her card through the reader. Its light turned green.

Johnson’s eyes narrowed, “Wait a minute. Who gave you that card?”

“Room E21, sir,” the girl said.

She stood aside to let Johnson enter first.

At the other side of the door, a middle-aged black man in security uniform nodded gravely at Johnson then moved to let him pass. Johnson recognised the man as Abe, head of security.

The corridor was blocked by an excited gaggle of lab workers.

“Step aside, please,” Johnson said abruptly, wondering why Abe hadn’t removed them already.

The crowd parted, and Johnson approached the door, drawing his own card from a lab coat pocket. But the young woman placed a hand on his shoulder. “Sir, I’m not sure it’s safe to go in.”

Johnson fixed her with a quizzical look. He slid the card back into the pocket of his lab coat. He sighed, cupping his hands to look through the glass pane on the door.

Behind the glass, Johnson found a gurney in the middle of the floor. Standing by the gurney was a man. His back was turned, so it was hard to tell what age he was. The man was naked, his back, legs and buttocks exposed. He looked unhealthy; his skin had a distinctly grey pallor about it.

Johnson turned back to the others. “Okay, someone talk to me. What have we got here?”

An older woman cleared her throat. She looked to the others, but they avoided her gaze. She took a breath then referred to her clipboard, flicking through the attached notes.

“This is Mr Alan Jenkins,” she began. “Forty nine years old. One of the test subjects for Project QT. Injected along with all the others twelve weeks ago.”

The woman paused. She looked up, found the others staring back at her.

Johnson frowned impatiently.

The woman continued, “Jenkins showed standard symptoms of flu three days after contracting the virus but then proceeded to make a full recovery. Responded positively to all tests. Released from quarantine four weeks—”

“We don’t need the finer details,” Johnson interrupted. “These people don’t have clearance!”

The older woman looked up from her notes. She cleared her throat, began reading again.

“No reports of ill health until yesterday, when he left work early, complaining of migraines. Chronic flu symptoms presented as the day continued. Jenkins showed up at the lab around lunchtime today, and Dr Farrow took him in, commenced tests at—”

“Can you
please
get to the point?!” Johnson barked.

The woman jumped at his voice. She looked up then adjusted her glasses.

“Sir,” she began, and her voice was very small and faint as if carried to Johnson’s ears from far away, “Mr Jenkins passed away this afternoon, time of death just past three o’clock. The virus consumed him. There was absolutely nothing that could be done...”

Johnson stared at them each in turn, his face incredulous. “I’m sorry,” he said, “But
this
is Mr Jenkins we’re watching now, yes?
So how can...
”

“It’s impossible,” the woman cut in. “I know that.”

Johnson grabbed the clipboard from her, flicked through the notes. He removed the pen from the breast pocket of his lab coat, tapped it against the clipboard as he read.

Ellis cupped her hands, peering once more through the glass pane on E21’s door. She watched carefully as the dead man investigated his surroundings. It was like the poor sod had just woken, finding himself somewhere he didn’t expect to be.

He looked up, then began to stumble towards her. As he edged closer, Ellis could see his wounds more clearly. Both lungs and heart were missing, his chest all but hollowed out.

Ellis raised a hand to her mouth, feeling distinctly queasy.

Jenkins continued towards her. His movements were slow and deliberate, and it took much longer than it should for him to reach the door. His head fell to one side as he drew closer, both eyes on hers. Ellis fought the urge to back away, but a very wrong part of her remained deeply intrigued by Jenkins.

A constant string of drool hung from the dead man’s mouth. One side of his bottom lip hung lower than the other. Yellow, tobacco-stained teeth were locked in a permanent grimace. His eyes were bloodshot. They sat like two rubber balls, cocooned within the pale, blotchy skin of his face.

Jenkins came right up to the door’s window, as if about to kiss it. Were he breathing, his breath would have steamed up the glass.

But dead men don’t breathe...

He pulled away, stumbling back towards his gurney. Ellis strained to see what had distracted him, eyes widening at the revelation.

She could hear Johnson in the background. “Where’s Farrow?” he barked. “I want to speak to Farrow!”

“No one’s seen him,” Dave Lightfoot answered.

“He vanished,” the woman with the clipboard added.

“We think he left the complex.”

But Ellis turned, fixed all three of them with a look. “I know where he is,” she said. “He’s behind this door. Blake’s still in there.”

***

For a moment, no one spoke. The silence was painful. Ellis felt sick again.

Dave went to E21’s glass pane, cupped his hands and stared in. “She’s right—he’s in the room,” he said. “I can see him now.”

“We can’t leave him there,” Ellis said.

“What else can we do?” Dave countered. “No one’s mad enough to open that door!”

Ellis rubbed her mouth, thought for a moment.

She pushed Dave aside, ran her card through the reader. It beeped, allowing her access through the door.

She looked pointedly at Johnson, expecting him to say something, to try and stop her, but he didn’t say a word.

Ellis reached for the door handle and began to turn it. It was Abe who intervened.

“Ellie,” he said quietly, placing his big hand over hers, “we don’t know what’s happening in there. Farrow could be infected with...” he thought for a moment then continued, “With whatever Jenkins has got.”

“Please,” Ellis said, “Take your hand away.” But she didn’t really want him to. She wanted Abe to stop her. To drag her away and lock her in some room until all this was sorted out. Instead, Abe smiled thinly, released his hand and backed away.

Ellis swallowed hard.

She opened the door and stepped inside.

Dr Blake Farrow was curled up in the corner of E21. He didn’t know how long he’d been there.

He was in shock, his breathing laboured. His chest thundered, as if his heart were about to explode. But Blake knew that wouldn’t happen. He was a doctor, for Christ’s sake. Hearts didn’t just explode, no matter how nervous a man got. There were rules to medicine. Things didn’t just happen without a logical reason...

Except this. There was no logic to this.

Blake watched the man he’d known as Alan Jenkins amble towards him, blood flowing freely from huge gaping wounds in his chest. No man could function without the use of his heart or lungs. Yet here Blake was, staring into the eyes of what was essentially a dead man walking.

Blake pulled himself slowly to his feet; eyes still fixed on Jenkins as if expecting the dead man to suddenly charge.

An idea struck the doctor.

He looked towards the trolley in the centre of the room, next to the gurney. He moved towards it, reaching for the box of needles. Blake retrieved a needle, snapping the first protective cap away before grabbing a syringe from another box. He inserted the needle to the syringe, glancing quickly at the shambling corpse moving towards him.

Jenkins was almost upon him.

Blake scrambled for the small bottle of sedative on the trolley. He shook it vigorously and then, after snapping the second protective cap from the business end of the needle, pierced the bottle’s cap, sucking up a healthy dose of sedative. He released the air from the syringe, watching as a little of the liquid seeped from the needle.

A sound at the door. Blake stared towards it, distracted from the task at hand and the creature drawing towards him.

It was Ellis.

“Jesus, Ellie,” he shouted at her, “Get the hell out!”

But she cut him off, screaming, “Blake, look out!”

He turned to find Jenkins lunging forward, the dead man’s arms outstretched, clammy hands finding his throat. There was strength in the attack. Inexplicable strength. Blake dropped the needle as he fell to the floor, fighting for breath as Jenkins’ grip tightened.

He could still hear Ellis screaming at him. There were other sounds too. Commotion from outside, heightened voices, as if a crowd were gathered at the door, watching him struggle like some hapless cage fighter.

His right hand found the needle again, gripping it tight.

Blake held Jenkins’ chin with his other hand then attacked with the needle. He found Jenkins’ left eye, teeth gritted as he forced the point through, digging more than injecting. A small jet of yellowish water spurted into the doctor’s face as he forced the needle deeper.

But Jenkins didn’t even flinch, his grip like a vice. The needle broke, part of it still jammed in the dead man’s eye, the syringe tumbling to the floor.

“Fuck!” Blake croaked as the cold hand tightened around his throat.

Ellis hadn’t planned this.

She wasn’t quite sure what she thought would happen when she entered E21. Maybe she would fall dead right there, succumb to whatever mutated virus was in the air. Maybe Jenkins would turn, growl, then chase her around the room like some kind of B-Movie monster. But instead the dead man had lunged at Blake, the doctor distracted by her entrance.

Blake was going to die, and it was her fault.

Ellis hurried to the trolley, a scalpel the first thing she saw. She made a grab for it then rushed to Blake’s aid.

She grabbed Jenkins by the hair, stabbing the infected man’s neck, blood splashing across the room as the scalpel’s razor-like blade cut into his flesh.

A low moan escaped from Jenkins’ lips, the infected man releasing Blake in order to reach behind his head. His hands groped for Ellis, but still she persisted, tearing through his dead skin.

Blake slid himself away, coughing as his lungs refilled with air.

But still Ellis hacked, screeching as blood soaked her face, spraying from the wounds as she ripped deeper into the flesh and cartilage, the dead man’s head almost removed from his body.

Finally, Jenkins stopped moving, his body slipping from Ellis’ grip.

Ellis fell to the floor beside him, Jenkins’ head still in her hands, attached only by the bloated veins running down the remainder of his neck.

While none of the other witnesses doubted the authenticity of what Blake Farrow relayed, Johnson remained sceptical. He wanted further proof, and he wanted it in the comfort of his own office. And so Abe was forced to link the security camera of E21 to Johnson’s PC. A video recording of the whole terrifying ordeal, from Jenkins’ admission to Ellis’ brutal confrontation, seemed the only way to convince the old fool once and for all.

Blake stood behind Johnson as the older man worked the mouse on his PC.

They started with footage from earlier in the day, when Alan Jenkins was first brought in. They watched as Jenkins was led into Room E21 and then prepped for a variety of standard tests, the infected man dealing with several ASOs as well as Blake himself.

Johnson grew bored, hit FORWARD on his media player.

“I would have called you,” Blake said, as they watched the footage speed up on screen. “But you never seem too interested in the affairs of the lab at the best of times. Always wrapped up in your paperwork.”

Johnson shot an acidic glance at his colleague then returned to his PC, clicking the footage back to NORMAL speed.

He clicked on PLAY, leaning closer to the screen as Jenkins took his last dying gasps. There was no sound on the recording, but Johnson could see the infected man’s face change, the laboured coughing and wheezing giving way to stillness.

An ASO hurried into the room, checking Jenkins’ pulse. Blake was then called to confirm the infected man’s death. In the recording, Blake looked at his watch and called time, then left the room. Johnson looked to the timer on the screen, checking it against the notes from his clipboard..

More time passed, the body lying perfectly still on the gurney. Johnson clicked on FORWARD again, speeding the video footage until he saw Blake Farrow return to the room, this time readied for autopsy. He watched as, onscreen, his colleague made the first incision into Jenkins’ chest.