Brian entered the bathroom. It was a very small room with just a toilet, a sink and a small shower. All the sanitary elements were steel and were welded to the walls to avoid damage to the patients.
Roger lay on the bed thinking, and waited impatiently for Brian to come out of the bathroom.
“What fear I have felt. I have been very close to dying,” said the hacker, while wiping his curly hair with a towel.
Roger sat up and smiled at Brian, trying to downplay what happened, but the truth was that his indecision nearly cost his friend his life. Sitting at the foot of the bed he looked at the hacker.
“I’m sorry, man, I was so scared. Tell me what the hell is happening here.” Roger said.
Brian let out a long sigh and sat down on the floor. “We were having dinner when the alarm sounded. It was very confusing. We did not know for sure what was happening and people were scared. From the speakers, they announced they were going to evacuate the Private Module. They told us to walk to the docks in an orderly manner and follow the instructions of the guards and security staff, and that the ferry would sail in five minutes. We were warned that anyone who was not on the ferry would be trapped on the island. The security was very nervous. They constantly talked among themselves and some even held their guns. I was scared, Roger.”
Brian shook his head, tidied his hair with his hands, and went on to relate what happened while gently scratching his right forearm. “But something had to have gone wrong in the evacuation plan because the safety door of the Mandatory Module opened for a moment. We could hear screams and gunshots. Some inmates entered the Private Module. They shouted something about an infection and that the inmates had gone mad. They said they were killing each other, and that members of the security team were firing indiscriminately. Everyone started to panic. We ran to the docks, we stumbled, and some were killed by bullets. Finally, the doors of the Mandatory Module were closed and security managed to control the situation. We were escorted to the ferry, by being shoved.
“God, when did it all happen?” Roger asked.
“Last night, shortly after you came back from the operating room,” Brian answered.
“And you? Why didn’t you get on the ferry?”
“I did, but I managed to sneak away and got off. I couldn’t leave you here alone,” Brian explained.
“Shit, Brian! Why did you do such a thing?” Roger asked.
“Because you are my friend,” Brian said.
A knot gripped Roger’s throat. He had no words to thank the gesture of courage and friendship that Brian had done for him. While Brian risked his life to not leave Roger on that fatal island, he thought about suicide. He felt disgusted with himself for being a coward and not having the courage to face the obstacles of life.
“Hey, you should have stayed on the boat,” Roger stammered. “You’re a fucking idiot. Thank you.”
“I don’t need you to thank me for anything. You would have done the same for me,” Brian said convinced of this.
And in a way Brian was right. Surely, Roger would have acted the same way. He was a coward in continuing to face life and his conscience was severely damaged. He felt unable to spend the rest of his days getting the nightly visits of the seven victims of the accident. Seeing their bloodied faces and the hollows of their empty eyes, but he would never abandon one of his friends on that island.
“Tell me Alissa managed to escape,” Roger whispered as he rubbed his eyes. “What do you know of the others?”
A little bit after you entered the operating room. They took Curtis to the Mandatory Module, apparently accused of assaulting a nurse and you’ve seen Chad. He is infected and willing to kill. Balzary failed to board the ferry and holed up in a room. He is paranoid and there is no way to get him out.
“What room has he locked himself in?” Roger asked, fearing the worst.
“In room 278. It’s not even his room.”
“Shit! Balzary is dead. I have seen Chad striking his head against the ground,” Roger said sadly. “Hell, they were like brothers. It was a brutal death. He gave him a tremendous beating and John is unrecognizable. What happened to them, Brian?”
“I don’t know what to say,” Brian shook his head. “When they are infected they are no longer themselves and become blood thirsty predators willing to kill. Chad is not alone, there are more of those things in the module.”
“Are they zombies?” Roger asked.
“Zombies? No, this is much worse. Did you see his eyes? They were bleeding. I have never seen such a violent being, not even in a video game,” Brian added.
“And Alissa? What do you know about her?” Roger asked.
“Nothing, RG. I haven’t seen Alissa. Perhaps, she is still here. It is also possible she got on the ferry and escaped.”
“Did you ever see her on the ferry?” Roger asked insistently.
“There were a lot of people ...” Brian said.
“Did you see her?” Roger asked once again.
“No.”
Those words bothered Roger. Something inside told him that Alissa was still in the CMA. He could feel her presence. But where? Why could he feel her?
“What’s the plan?” Roger asked.
“Now that you’re awake. To escape from this damned island,” Brian told him
“I agree,” Roger said.
Brian carefully opened the bedroom door. He looked to both sides of the hallway. In the hallway there was a terrifying silence, a silence disturbed only by the distant cries of some of the infected. The hacker waved his hand to Roger, and with extreme caution, both of them left the room.
“There’s an infected person in the dining room, it’s a guard. We can take food from the tables near the door, but we must be very fast,” Brian explained. “I suppose you're hungry.”
“Right now eating is not my main concern,” Roger said. “We need a weapon. We can’t go around unprotected and at the mercy of these beasts.”
Brian paused thoughtfully. During the more than twenty-four hours in which he had hidden he’d never thought of arming himself. It seemed like a good idea, but he could not think of where to get a gun in a facility designed so patients couldn’t hurt themselves.
“We have to think about where we can find a gun,” mumbled Roger. “Perhaps in the basement, maybe maintenance will have something we can use to defend ourselves.”
“It’s possible, but it will be difficult to enter. The safety lock is activated.”
“You’re a hacker, I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Roger told Brian.
“I can’t do anything without a computer,” Brian said with resignation, “and I have not seen one since I entered here.”
Roger’s face betrayed a growing concern. Without a weapon with which to protect themselves from attacks by the infected and without a computer to hack. They wouldn’t be able to open the computerized security locks and it would be impossible to escape alive from the CMA.
“Let’s go down the hall. We might find something there,” Roger said.
The two friends walked to the door leading to the staircase. Brian had not gone below the third floor, and did not know what they could encounter down there. Roger opened the door and they did not hear anything. The staircase was empty.
“Let’s go.”
They descended to the first floor and accessed the corridor leading to the main room. It was bright and airy.
Down there, the silence was absolute.
They walked up to the double doors that led into the hall. Brian looked at the lock. It was open and they accessed it without difficulty. It was a large room, with a capacity for two hundred people, and it was often used to show films. Inside they found several chairs scattered on the ground and some overturned tables, some patients probably ran into them while trying to leave when the alarm sounded.
“If we could cut the legs of the chairs...” Roger said. The chairs in the CMA were reinforced aluminum designed so that no patient could separate their parts and use them as a weapon. The environment was not favorable for them. They were trapped in a place where even the smallest detail had been designed to avoid any damage. Roger sighed and looked for something in the room with him to break the chairs, but found nothing.
“RG! Look!” Brian cried from the other side of the room. The hacker was holding something in his hand. Roger approached and observed in surprise how Brian handed him a can of an energy drink that still contained some liquid.
“It’s not possible,” Roger said, because any product with caffeine was banned inside the facility. “This can should not be here.”
“No. Someone from outside has been in the lounge,” Brian agreed, and began scratching his forearm. The presence of a stranger altered his fragile nervous system.
“Easy, friend,” Roger said as he put his hand on his shoulder. “Maybe they sent someone to get us out of here.”
But they both knew that the odds that someone had come to their rescue were slim. If Capital Tech had sent someone inside the CMA. It was certain they had a more important reason than to rescue two patients.
Roger looked up, saw the TV was off and thought about turning it on, but the activation was centralized and the TV did not have any buttons.
“Brian, you think you can hack into the power of the TV?” Roger asked, pointing to the device. “They may be talking about what happened in here on the news channel and we could use outside information.
“Sure,” said the hacker, “if we open the front panel, it’s a breeze.”
Roger pulled off the hard plastic covering the control unit of the device. With nothing to pry it open, it was a difficult task, but after struggling for a few minutes, the staples gave and the front of the TV was exposed. For Brian, who was a hacker and liked to be called by the name of ‘The Phantom’. Manipulating the device seemed like child’s play. In a couple of minutes, he managed to deactivate the remote system and activated the manual system. He hit a pair of wires, and after a little spark, the image was projected on the screen.
“Let’s find the news channel,” said Roger enthusiastically, while Brian fingered buttons turning to a news channel.
“We have managed to learn that the investigation of the bodies found in the seaport is progressing well. So far they have found the remains of one hundred twenty-seven corpses, and several of the bodies have been identified by forensic authorities. Among the bodies they found some familiar people, CMA staff and members of the center’s private security force. CMA internal sources have confirmed a fire at the facility. This is why they were forced to urgently evacuate the Private Module. Apparently, there was no danger to the other modules, so activity in the other wards of the center was not affected and they continue to function normally.
The main theory hypothesized about the accident points to a failure in the fuel tanks of the ferry that were carrying the victims to the Capital Tech facilities located in the Financial District of Capital City. The problem could have caused the explosion that ended the lives of all the passengers, including the crew. The cause of the fire in the CMA and the shuttle explosion has still not been confirmed, and the Federal Police are investigating the wreckage of the ship in search of evidence to clarify the facts.”
“Fuck!” Roger said, stunned by the news.
“But what ... what ...?” Brian babbled visibly scared. “What is happening here, RG?”
The hacker scratched his forearm with much more force than usual. Brian was very nervous and his face betrayed concern and fear.
“I do not know, but it must be something big. They killed them all. They have erased all traces of life from the Private Module,” Roger muttered, gritting his teeth angrily, but with the hope that Alissa had not taken the ferry.
The television showed images of charred bodies, all piled on the beach near Capital City. Roger could not look away from the monitor, trying to distinguish the body of Alissa among the charred corpses, but it was impossible. In the darkness of the night, the lights of ambulances and police vehicles illuminated the dead. While the Federal Police searched through the remains for any conclusive evidence. They would probably never find anything. Capital Tech would have taken care not to leave any loose ends.
“We must move, friend. If they know that we didn’t get on the ferry. They will have sent someone to kill us,” Roger said with his eyes on the can of the energy drink. Then a shrill sound frightened them, and startled, they turned toward the entrance to the hallway. The steel door was slammed against the wall, and there, staring at them, was Chad about to pounce on them to end their lives.
“Roger!” Brian shouted, scared and paralyzed to see the monster a few meters from them.
Chad moved, this time in a slow and deliberate way. He seemed to be aware that he had cornered his prey, and he rejoiced in his advantage. Roger observed Chad’s movements, he studied his steps, and realized that the infected man had intact the capacity to adapt to the situation. They did not kill, nor move by primal instincts, but within the unprecedented violence that gave them a supernatural force, they were able to reason and analyze how they should attack their victims.
“They’re smart,” Roger muttered. “Pull up a chair, Brian.”
“What?” said the hacker, numbed by a fear that prevented him from reacting.
“Grab a fucking chair!” Roger shouted angrily. The boy recalled his days at the basketball court. At that time, he was fighting for victory, leading his team to sports glory. This night, he fought for his life and that of his friend.
Roger sighed, he must stay focused, if they wanted to get out of there alive. His eyes visualized the room as if it was a basketball court. The opponent was strong and very dangerous, but there were two of them.
“Towards the left, move to the left,” Roger said with conviction and by tapping the arm of the hacker, Brian did so. The two friends moved slowly, looking at the left wall of the room, thus they achieved a small positional advantage on Chad and opened up a flank to escape. The monster made a terrifying groan, bared his teeth and blew a mouthful of blackened, thick blood, that ran in a grotesque rivulet down his chin to drip on the floor.
“He’ll kill us, he’ll kill us,” The hacker whimpered unceasingly.
“Calm down, friend. I’ll get you out of this,” Roger nodded and armed himself with a chair, but Brian did not look convinced. He trembled with fear and didn’t help. Chad’s eyes were emanating streams of blood that slid down his face and it was a terrible, creepy image. The creature was terrifying but, oddly Roger seemed to have no fear. In his first meeting with Chad the monster surprised him. However, this time it was different, and he knew he had to keep a cool head if he didn’t want to be savagely beaten to death by the monster. Because there was barely a hint of humanity in his face.
Roger noticed the movement of Chad’s rib cage. Chad squirmed with increasing force, and watching the monster’s breathing Roger could see how his level of violence was increasing. Roger understood that these movements were an indication of an early attack, and prepared to defend himself without looking away from the monster.
Roger threw a chair against the infected man, but the monster pushed it away from his path with a simple arm movement. At that moment, Chad launched a terrifying wail that echoed through the steel walls, and another mouthful of blood and spit fell out onto the floor. After seeing that, Roger’s hope to emerge alive from the CMA vanished completely. The monster seemed conceived in the depths of hell to end all life on the planet, and fighting against a being like this, you were entrusted to find only a very painful death.
“On my signal you run to the door,” Roger said, looking into Brian’s eyes. “I’ll create a diversion.”
“But ...” The hacker stammered. “And you?”
“Don’t worry about me, friend. I long ago resigned myself to dying,” Roger said.
Without further explanation, Roger was armed with another chair and ran towards the infected. Chad tried to pounce on him, but the basketball star still had one last feint to perform. Roger whirled and slammed the chair in Chad’s back.
“Run!” Roger yelled.
Brian ran toward the door. Taking advantage of the bold diversion his friend had given him to escape, but his friend remained at the mercy of that monstrosity.
The blow with the chair didn’t help at all. In Brian’s eyes, the scene turned to slow motion and from a safer position, he could see Chad grab Roger and push him violently to the ground. The infected man drove his knee into Roger’s stomach and Roger cried out in pain. Then Chad grabbed Roger’s head with both hands ready to bang it on the floor and burst it open on the floor. Breathing his last breath, Roger glanced toward the door, where his friend watched in horror at the scene.
“Leave!” Roger yelled again. “Run!”
Helpless against the fury and bloodthirst of the infected. Roger was seeing all his life reflected in the bloodshot eyes of the monster. He remembered his wealthy childhood in a luxurious house in the Financial District, his graduation party, his friend Louis and girls fondling each other in the back seat of his Shelby GT. While looking into the eyes of the infected man. Roger thought about his family traveling to enjoy a peaceful weekend at the lake. His father, the powerful lawyer who helped him avoid prison and who was excited as he signed a check to save the life of his beloved son. A son who had become a drug addict with no future.
Roger didn’t try to defend himself. He feared the pain that could be caused by the aberration, out of the deepest nightmares of some crackpot, but not death, for in it he would find the peace he craved.
With the first blow, his sight turned misty. He could feel a chill, accompanied by a tingling, that ran through his head until it reached down his neck. Perhaps looking for his nervous system. With the second blow, a click made him believe that his head had burst open. When Chad lifted his head again Roger closed his eyes and knew for sure that the third blow would kill him.
“I’m sorry.” Were his last words before receiving the fatal impact.