Chapter Forty-Three

The cafeteria was jam-packed with personnel, shift managers and frantic crew members. There were hundreds inside, and many more were ganged up in the hallways. Addey cupped her ears to muffle the booming chatter of voices. The back section was filled with people removing yellow hazmat suits and standing unabashed in their underclothes. The doctors in the medic wing clung to a niche. The cooks stayed in the kitchen, wary of leaving their stations. She thought of Herman, but she decided her efforts here would benefit him more in the long run. She could visit him every hour on the hour when this was over—if it ended in their favor. It’d been reported that the level-two zombies had vanished from the pit. Todd Lamberson said he’d talked to the shift manager in the wolf arena, and the wolves were also missing.

Todd stepped on top of a table, shouting, “Everybody, let’s calm down! Our director is missing, and so is his assistant. That leaves us to call the shots. It’s obvious the monsters are up to something. Ever since that secret passage was discovered, everything’s changed. We also know the monsters can only be in one place, and that is under our feet.”

“Does your speech include a plan, asshole?”

“Yeah, what about the monsters?”

“We don’t have weapons.”

“Why don’t we call for help?”

“There’s no outgoing signal. I’ve already tried.”

“How do we protect the people recovering in the medical wing?”

“Fuck it, the government will drop an A-bomb on this place, so kiss our asses good-bye.”

“Then we should be trying to sail off this island.”

“There are no boats.”

“Then let’s make them.”

“Do we seriously have time?”

“That ocean is hundreds of miles.”

“I’d rather perish on the sea than by the hands of those things.”

“Why can’t we fight them? We have guns.”

“Yeah, handguns.”

“Knives are as good as using toothpicks.”

“Fuck listening to this asshole.”

“We’re better off on our own.”

“Brenner and Cortez are either dead or sailing way the fuck out of this place.”

“They’re dead—let’s be honest.”

“Or they’re hiding.”

“Cowards.”

“Let’s wait this out.”

“Wait it out and die.”

“This is our fault.”

“Why didn’t we kill them from the start?”

“None of this was our choice.”

“Now it is. Fuck the government.”

The crowd dispersed. The congregation was fragmented, many abandoning the cafeteria and halls altogether. Todd pleaded, and Addey joined him. “You can’t just leave! Together, we’re stronger. Let’s take five minutes to talk. Give us a chance.”

Jessica and Cynthia begged the group to talk it out more, but the mob decided for them. Jessica stepped down from the table and approached Addey. “These people will get themselves killed.”

Addey was infuriated. “Maybe it’s better to be without them. They’re afraid. Irrational. They’re going to do what they want to do, and no police or army are here to tell them otherwise.”

Cynthia hardened her face. “Then we’re on our own.”

Todd was visibly flustered. “I wish I knew where Brenner and Richard were at this point, especially Richard. He’s the one who joined us together.”

“You have to count on him being dead,” Jessica decided.

“What are you saying?” Addey questioned her. “Until I see a body, I’m not convinced.”

“Just because you have a thing for Richard doesn’t mean he’s any safer than anybody else when they become missing,” Cynthia said. “It’s our decision what we do now. You can go look for him, Addey. It doesn’t matter what you do, really, because I’m doing what I want from now on.”

Todd said, “Look, there are four us in agreement that we’re in deep shit. We can’t sail off this island, though I’m sure some will try. Fighting and hiding, it’s a good strategy. I’d hate to put it this way, but our colleagues will be attacked. We’ll pick off the monsters in the process.”

“Jesus Christ, people!” Addey was astonished. “Aren’t we trying to save lives?”

Jessica disagreed. “You know, Todd’s right. Nobody else is watching our backs. It’s everybody for themselves.”

Addey couldn’t let this go without an argument. “This takes rational thinking. If we locate Brenner or Richard, they might know something we don’t. They’ve had the most communication with the PSA. Perhaps there is a contingency plan.”

“Or the government’s doing this to us so we’ll all die,” Todd said. “They want to finish off the island; why not stop bringing in supplies and eventually allow the monsters to revolt? I swear I’ll see a fucking bomb squeal from the sky, and we’ll be human toothpaste. I want off this island. Period.”

Jessica agreed. “We can’t fight them.”

Addey couldn’t reason with them, so she wouldn’t.

“Wipe that expression off your face,” Jessica warned her, sensing Addey’s disdain. “Just because you fought off some level-two zombies and stood your own against James Sorelli doesn’t mean you know what’s best for us.”

“Then fine, do what you want to do. I’m looking for Richard and Brenner. I want answers.”

Cynthia was confused, stuck between choosing Addey’s side or Jessica and Todd’s. She picked the larger group. “I’m sorry, Addey. I want to escape; it’s that simple. I can’t stand this place anymore.”

“Neither can I, and I’ve been here for only a matter of days. Everything that’s happened to me revolves around the PSA. The island will blow up because of the PSA. The monsters were brought her by the PSA. And whatever battle there is to be fought will be determined by the PSA. That’s why I want to be close to the people who know about the fucking PSA. You go out there on the ocean, they could shoot you down from the skies. The island could blow up, yes, but think about it. Nobody’s going to let you make it back into the USA, or any country. You have secrets. The government has done crazy shit behind the American people’s back. They’ll do anything to keep it hush-hush. They’ve succeeded for over a hundred years.”

“That sounds eloquent,” Todd broke in, “but I’m about action. I’m trusting my gut. Follow me if you want, leave if you want. It’s nothing personal. I consider you all friends.”

Jessica’s eyes went heavy for a moment. Addey felt her sorrow and hugged her close. “You do what’s best for you.” Cynthia came in for a hug too, and Todd finished the group embrace. They wanted to sob and not leave the circle, but a decision had to be made.

“I know it’s nothing personal, guys,” Addey reiterated. “I’m trusting my intuition on this one. You do the same for yourselves. When we’re dead, none of us will be there to apologize for dying. I’m looking for Brenner and Richard. That’s all I know to do.”

“Good luck,” Todd said. “Maybe this will be resolved, and we’ll all make it.”

Nobody put stock in the statement. The three of them left Addey behind. They circulated through the halls and disappeared among the throng of people.

She couldn’t think with the endless cacophony of worried exchanges, so she pushed her way out of the cafeteria.

The siren that blared was cutting loud.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

It was a tornado siren, shrill and foreboding. Everybody froze. Looked around. The conversations were snuffed. The intercoms crackled, then emanated the words. “This is Carl Brenner. Report to the back of the strip club. An armory has been opened. I’ll be waiting there to issue orders. Make haste immediately.”

The hundreds bumbled into each other, pushing, shoving, running and desperate to reach help. Addey hesitated, overwhelmed by the chain reaction. Half the crowd had already powered their way out of the hall and were running toward the strip club. Addey attached herself to the backmost herd. The gym and the living quarters had been abandoned. She kept moving as they entered the shopping area. The bar’s lights were dimmed, the techno music absent. The clothing stores were uninhabited. The red-light district was up ahead, the red curtain drawn.

They picked a strange place to keep an armory.

The front of the club wasn’t visible from her standpoint. The crowd bustled in, the curtain shuffled back again and again and nearly torn from the ceiling. A booming voice could be heard from within the strip club. “Hey—where’s Brenner?”

“There’s no armory here! There’s nothing.”

“Who the fuck made the announcement?”

“Maybe Brenner’s not here yet.”

“Then what’s going on?”

“Brenner didn’t make the call?”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know.”

She caught the front quarter of people eclipsed by moving shadows overhead. Addey looked up—too late! The lurking anomaly lurched down upon them. They were doused with a heavy liquid. Clear. Viscous. Slithering. Forking. Expanding. Thickening in composition. The liquid upgraded into flesh, patches and squares of skin forming cell by cell, blood vessel by blood vessel, flesh stacking, ATP sticking muscle fibers together. Then in a flash, the level-two dead attacked in full form. Thirty of the workers were taken down at once, devoured by the roaring horde that was born from fluids.

Screams ejected her up the stairs and into the shopping district’s foyer. Nearby, a fleet of vampires charged from the bar. Their pale faces delved into necks and punched through chest cavities for the heart. Fifty, a hundred, two hundred—she couldn’t count them, there were so many, and the numbers kept escalating. Wolves charged from the clothing store, the pack mixing with the zombies who’d changed from liquid to putrid flesh right before her eyes.

They were hundreds strong and still coming!

She was halted by the crouched, naked zombie on the floor between the clothing stores and the stairway. The female thing writhed, her head shaking spastically and on the verge of exploding. Her back split, the spine bobbing up and down as gallons of blood leaked free. Then hands, feet and a body forced themselves from the female, birthing itself. It was a wolf slathered in blood and birth fluids. The wolf uncurled from its fetal position and shrieked. Another body was spit out from the same mother, a vampire this time. The next two were vampires, then three more zombies. The zombie wouldn’t stop giving birth, continuing the cycle of vicious life.

Gunshots ricocheted, cordite and gunpowder congesting the area. Addey was astonished at the vampire that was shot in the face. It didn’t die; instead, it removed a layer of skin about its entirety with its clawing hands and revealed a raging werewolf. Shot again, its hairy sheath dismantled and unraveled itself into a decaying zombie. Another bullet to the head, and the creature crashed to the floor, deceased.

That fucking thing died three times!

From behind her, a familiar face demanded, “Let’s move, Addey. I know a way out.”

It was Richard Cortez. She was relieved he was here. “Where’s Brenner? Who made the announcement? There’s no armory. There’s nothing here but them!”

“We have to move,” Richard instructed her, pointing north. “Up the stairs—go!”

“Did you see them?” Addey cried out, not ready to give up on her questions. “They have three lives, and they’re turning into different creatures each time. The IV tubes, they were swapping blood—each other’s abilities! Can’t you see?”

Richard’s face then metamorphosed into a wolf’s snout and broke through a false mask of skin, his teeth clicking and clacking, spittle flying, its breath hot and stinking of raw meat, its eyes golden and sideways triangles, its outer sheath of flesh torn free to reveal bushy coils of hair and throbbing muscles. “Raaaaaaaaargggh!”

It wasn’t Richard—or if it was, he’d been turned into a werewolf. She retreated from the werewolf, regardless of its identity. Wild stomping pursued her. She dodged a huddle of zombies crouched over a disemboweled shift manager. Liquid slid down the wall, viscous and clear. The liquid dissipated, forked, then turned into netting, shaping itself into patches of skin, bones and tangles of muscle tissue. Then it all came together and created a mixed herd of vampires and zombies, fifteen strong. She changed direction, taking a sharp left and then sprinting toward the cafeteria to avoid the collection of monsters in waiting.

The same wolf swiped its claws in her direction, inches from claiming her in its meaty grip. The wolf refused to give up the chase as she stormed into the cafeteria and shuffled through the kitchen area. The wolf smashed through shelves of chips and snack cakes, and leveled the buffet line into pieces with its hulking fists, shattering glass and warping steel.

Running blindly, she was cornered in the cook’s station. The wolf smashed the face of two ovens. Face foamy and purple tongue wild in its mouth, it shrieked and snorted in a savage mix of a banshee and boar. Her back was pressed against the wall with nowhere else to run. The kitchen had been scoured for useful implements, the drawers opened and scattered on the floor. She had dropped her boning knife when the wolf started chasing her. She was defenseless. 

The wolf crouched on all fours, poised to kill. Nails rendered sparks from the tiles when it bolted toward her. She closed her eyes, unable to watch it close in. Before it touched her, it yelped, spilling onto the floor. She opened her eyes at the hiss and crackle of sizzling. The wolf had knocked over a burning hot vat of grease from an industrial cooker. It writhed, the flesh turned inside out with burns and boiling skin. She sprinted past it, the wolf reaching out and clawing her left calf, but failing to prevent her escape.

She stumbled into the seating area of the cafeteria after being tackled by a zombie from behind. Addey struck the ground. The zombie clenched her by the neck, the other hand pushing aside her head to expose the jugular vein. She flailed and kicked to escape, trying to gain leverage. She recalled when surfers were attacked by sharks, they were supposed to gouge out the eyes.

“Let me go!”

She extended all five fingers and punched through its eye. Her fist squished into its brain cavity, the mess wet and slithery. She removed her hand, each digit covered in grease, blood and a colony of mealworms. She flicked her hand to remove them. “Sick!”

The dead man collapsed onto the floor.

She couldn’t turn back the way she’d come. The screams were warning enough, each bloodcurdling, high pitched and carrying on. In a matter of minutes, everybody would be slaughtered.

Searching about every way, she caught sight of the window in the back of the cafeteria. She rushed past the wolf, its body curled up—breathing, but shivering in the agony of its burns. This window was wide enough for her to crawl out of, so she peered down, seeing there was an emergency ladder she could scale.

Addey surveyed the cafeteria one last time. The area was swarmed by hundreds and hundreds of monsters. They literally tore through the walls, howling at the sight of her. She was just another victim to be killed to them.

Maybe the final victim.

She gasped for breath, her instincts and common sense choked by peril. Crawling through the window, she began her descent. One bar, two bars, three bars, she kept lowering herself down the ladder. Rotten faces peeked down at her from the edge of the roof and through shattered windows and broken paneling. Vampires and wolves cackled at her, and it wasn’t much longer before shards of concrete and brick rained down on her. She was struck on the shoulder, and then something smacked her on the head. A blade sliced between her shoulders, and she had to stop, clutching the ladder so as not to fall.

“Ah—God!”

Wicked laughter, celebrations from the dead, rejoicing from freaks with blood on their tongues and human meat in their bellies, roared from every direction.

Keep moving!

You’re not dead yet.

One bar, two bars, three bars traveled, she was halfway down to the ground level. The courtyard was below. She was near the med wing, the dining hall, and the mobile storage units. The monsters hadn’t paraded those grounds yet.

Hearing slosh and gloop sounds above her, she gawked at what was incoming. A moving mud slick of human flesh trailed from the roof’s edge. It scooted down to her with alarming speed. Her hair blasted upward in the wind. Her skin ached, threatening to rip from the bone. Pinching. Grasping. Yanking. The feeling was of a great suction. Nodules formed along the layers of skin, the nodules themselves sucking in to steal her skin.

The stitching along her face was unraveled thread by thread. Warmth drained down her face in hot rivers. The creature was trying to suck her skin off the bone. Unable to take it, she was forced to release her grip on the bars. She went sailing down to the ground, soon striking a patch of grass. The drop was about five feet. On all fours, she wasn’t sure if she’d broken anything, but her face was dripping blood. The bitter flavor of iron tainted her tongue.

Debris meant to serve as weapons continued to rain down on her as she fled through the courtyard. There was no place she could hide that they couldn’t see. The red cross on the white sign urged her on. She needed medical attention, and even more so, a place to hide.

She sprinted to the building, running on little energy and reeling from the agony of her open wounds. Arriving there, she pounded on the door, the barrier reinforced steel and locked.

“Open up, it’s me! I’m not one of them.”

She wasn’t sure if she was reasoning with a locked door, or if there was really somebody behind the barrier. She kept pounding, having no alternative but to keep on trying. “Look, I’m bleeding. That fucking puddle tore the stitches out of my face. My name is Addey. I was here the other day. The level-one zombie tried to eat me. Does that help? I am who I say I am.”

The door was disturbed, as if someone had touched the doorknob and then decided against opening it.

“Please, my life is in your hands!”

A deadbolt was undone. And then another one. She waited, afraid if she pulled the door open herself, they’d lock it again and leave her to die.

She heard the whisper, and then a familiar voice demanded. “Let her in. She’s not one of them. I know her. I’ll open it myself then!”

The door finally opened. She was ushered inside. The door slammed closed behind her once she crossed the threshold.

Herman was the first one to greet her among the small group. He hugged her close. “You’re still alive. Thank God.”

She pointed through the door, shortchanging the man’s joy. “Yeah, and so are they.”