Infected inside

Infected inside (chapter 14)

When lab guy was sure we weren’t going to attack him he pressed the button and blood began to run from the tube attached to Danny into the machine and then passed through into Liams tube. I could see Liam wanted to get up and watched him use every willpower to stay sitting as Danny wished and not save him instead of himself.

“It’s so hard I know, but we have to respect Danny’s wishes, he wants to go while he is still himself, we at least owe him that and this way he won’t die for nothing,” I said tearfully, leaning down and taking Liams hand so that I had both their hands.

Danny smiled and said, “exactly, I miss my wife and this way I get to both go out with a bang while saving your sorry ass and see her again.”

Liam gave a small laugh at the jab and didn’t try to keep the tears back while we watched Danny grow more weak and tired.

“Does it hurt?” I asked him.

He took a while to respond and softly said, “not at all, bit nauseous but otherwise I’m mostly just tired, a nice way to go so don’t you worry about me Gracie. Must admit this is preferable to getting munched on by zombies.”

Even while dying he had his sense of humour, I rolled my eyes playfully and kissed his hand.

“I’m going to miss you so much, you’ve done so much for me I can never repay you.”

“Bit late to pay me now anyway.” He laughed at his own joke and carried on more seriously, “you and Liam take care of each other and it’s not like you’ll be completely alone anyway, I’ll always be living on through him in a way.”

He grew more silent and spoke less and less as time passed and he grew more sleepy. I looked at lab guy and snapped, “I swear if this doesn’t work and he dies for nothing I will take you down.” Lab guy looked wide eyed and scared but he nodded and confidently said, “it will absolutely work.”

How confident he was made me suspicious. “How do you know?”

He gulped at the look I gave him and then answered, “we tried it on another subject after Liam escaped. It worked.”

“Where is this other subject?”

“I don’t know, the zombies got into the building and I was sent down here to protect the virus. Last I saw him he was still resting.”

I looked back at Danny and he spoke his last words, “I can see my…wife. I think…you were right Gracie…Liam must have been…playing…with…dodge before they…brought him…back.” He passed away with a smile on his face and me and Liam both silently cried.

I managed to compose myself enough to ask, “how do we know if it’s worked?”

Lab guy checked the monitor and then undid the straps from Liams wrists and started examining him. He took some blood, listened to Liams’s heart and some other dr type s**t. When the results of Liams blood came back he breathed a sigh of relief and turned to us both, “it was a success. Liam is healthy and alive, no sign of dying.”

I hugged Liam hard and he held me just as tight, I think we were more relieved that Danny had not died in vain then anything else in that moment.

We needed to get moving and the crash we heard above the ceiling confirmed that. We pulled ourselves together and I looked at back at Danny saying, “we can’t leave him here like this.”

“We have to for now but we will come back as soon as we are able, if it seems impossible then we will at least burn this place to the ground so no one can touch him and no motherfucking monsters touch him either.” Liam took my hands in his making eye contact and added fiercely, “I promise Grace.”

I nodded and pulled my backpack back onto my back and went to follow Liam out the door when lab guy nervously asked, “please take me with you?”

Liam glared at him. “Are you f*****g joking, after everything you and your team have done!”

He went to walk off only stopping when he noticed I hadn’t moved. I was too soft and quite rightly as Liam had said, after everything he had been a part of I still could not bear the thought of leaving him behind to die, of being the reason he dies.

“What are you doing. Come on.” Liam demanded.

I shook my head. “I can’t, we are better than them and I won’t lose sleep over he’s death knowing I could have tried to prevent it.”

Sighing he turned to look behind me where lab guy was cowering slightly and growled, “fine, you come with us but if you so much as slow us down or cause any sort of problem you’re on your own. Got it?”

Lab guy nodded fast and came over to us, relief flooding his face. We all left the room and I gave one last glimpse at Danny before reluctantly leaving him there. I made sure lab guy locked the door behind us to deter anyone or anything from getting to Danny. We followed Liams lead and made our way down the corridor.

When we reached the door again Liam opened it and looked out. He ducked his head back in quickly and shut it. “There’s no way we can go that way.”

When I just frowned looking at him to carry on in a lowered voice he said, “zombies. Everywhere.”

Great. “Great, so we have to go up to where that thing is.” Turning to look at lab guy I asked, “what the hell is that thing, how did you even make it?” He looked completely confused so I described it as best I could and he nodded. “Oh that would be experiment 56X I wasn’t part of that team or in its creation, I don’t know how it was made or whether it was originally a zombie that mutated and they were looking as to how and why?”

“What!” I hissed. “They can mutate?”

“I’m not sure, none of us has seen it in person and I can’t speak on behalf of everyone as I was only a part of the zombies you’ve seen running around, I haven’t had any part of the more unique kind.”

I snorted when he said unique and turned back to follow Liam up the stairs. “Wouldn’t we be better off going out the door and dealing with the zombies rather then huge motherfucker upstairs plus zombies?”

He didn’t look back at me as he answered, “I figured there’s more hiding spots in here and if we get seen then if there’s a load I would rather have small narrow hallways rather than a big open space they can use to surround us.”

That made sense, a narrow hallway would force them to come a couple at a time they wouldn’t have the space to flank us or surround us.

When we reached the top and Liam opened the door back to the corridor, thanks to living in what I believed to be an apocalyptic world of zombies I was prepared and not shocked at the bodies lying on the floor or the missing limbs. Lab guy on the other hand started heaving and retching and I had to spin around to tell him to be quiet. He tried he’s best and eventually he calmed down enough to allow us to safely move on ahead.

We stepped quietly over the bodies and I tried not to slip up on any of the blood. There were some zombies spread around but thankfully busy eating the remains of the workers that had been here.

We quietly crept past them and turned left making our way down another hallway. I’m not sure which turn it was or how far we walked before Liam saw a locked door that he decided he had to get inside. “What are you doing?” I whispered. Without looking at me he replied, “there were a s**t load of soldiers here and this door looks sealed just like some other places I’ve seen, places that behind these doors hold a very good amount of guns and ammo.” He gave up with the pick locking when it was clear the lock was too good and just hit it really hard with the end of his gun. It pinged off and Liam was already inside while me and lab guy were looking around with panic making sure nothing had heard the loud noise we had just made.

I followed Liam inside and saw he was right. There were a load of guns. Straight away he went over to the flame thrower and I rolled my eyes. Typical. I grabbed myself another assault rifle, they had become my favourite gun, I could put more rounds into zombies’ heads at a much faster rate then just a pistol and the assault rifle was obviously much more powerful too.

Lab guy stood there with a scared expression on his face. When I looked at him and raised an eyebrow he stood up taller and eventually grabbed a machete. I shrugged my shoulders at the choice and waited for Liam to finish loading up the weapons of his choice.

When we were all satisfied we left the room and Liam found a way to lock it behind him in case anyone other than us tried to get in. We carried on making our way down the hall and the sound of an almighty crash made me jump so hard I almost dropped the gun in my hand. The sound had come from the room next to us and just like in horror movies I slowly looked over and locked eyes with the big motherfucker. I swear I peed myself a little but I didn’t have time to check as big motherfucker was moving towards us.

It smashed through the glass window like it was nothing and one of its hands reached out for me. Liam flamed the s**t out of it with his new flame thrower and it fell away making this terrible screeching sound. The smell of Burnt flesh filled the room and I tried not to throw up while Liam kept the flames on its body. It writhed and tried to get away and when that didn’t work it tried to come for Liam. It back handed him and he crashed to the floor hard, momentarily stunned, the flames no longer hitting the thing. It started charging towards him but he refilled the gun within seconds turned and aimed it at big motherfucker and let the flames consume it again. It stumbled back and every time it tried to reach Liam he dodged while keeping the flame on its body, then he moved it up so the flame hit its face, still it kept coming at him but when I went to fire my own rounds into it Liam shook his head no. The flame thrower didn’t make too much noise my gun on the other hand would make a shitload of noise so I understood but still stood prepared in case things got ugly.

Big motherfucker was burnt so badly parts of it were falling off, the thing didn’t stop coming for Liam until it’s last breath only when death came did it finally, slowly crash to the floor no longer moving.