If I’m dead
, he thinks,
then how can I even ask this question
?
I’m not dead. I’m something else
.
The sedatives have stopped having an effect on his system long ago. He knows this and feels (no,
knows
) he can get up anytime he wants to.
Now is one of those times.
He opens and closes his eyes quickly to see who is around him. Immediately, he hears a racket as doctors and tech gather around him.
The hunger that seems to be a dull pang in his system is slowly spreading through his entire body. He can’t control that hunger any longer. He is beginning to realize what his bigger purpose is.
He is about to fulfill it.
***
“What do you mean he opened his eyes?” Butsko yells at the tech. “He’s still out cold.”
“Sir,” Williams says in a calm voice, “you need to stop thinking about this man as alive or in some kind of coma.”
Butsko stares at him.
Wilder decides it was time to get in on this. “Look, guys, I’m not anything remotely close to a doctor, but I’ve seen and been around more dead people than all of you combined.” He lets that point sink in. “This man is dead.” Before anyone can say anything, he continues, “Yet, he seems to still retain certain functions, certain living functions like REM sleep. I just said I wasn’t a doctor, so tell me: what the fuck is going on here? Is this man dead?”
“Yes,” Williams answers, “but not in a traditional sense.” Wilder rolls his eyes.
“You’re forgetting that he was bitten by an animal that was undergoing experimental trials,” Levine reminds everyone.
“Okay,” Wilder says, perking up. “That’s good. All we need to know is exactly what those experiments were.”
“That’s the million dollar question,” Butsko hisses.
Just at that moment, Butsko’s walkie-talkie buzzes. “Butsko,” he answers.
“Sir, sir,” says a voice excitedly over the phone. “This is Monroe down in the computer lab. We recovered and deciphered the damaged hard drive from the Hudson lab.”
Finally
, Butsko thinks.
We can finally get some more pieces to the puzzle
. “Go on, Monroe. What the hell are we dealing with here? What kind of virus is coursing through the subject?”
“It’s not a virus, Sir,” Monroe says, correcting the General. “I wish it were. There’s a virus component to these experiments, but the virus is only acting as the host and as an activating mechanism to the main player.”
“Stop beating around the bush, Monroe. Get to the point. What the hell are we dealing with here?”
“Think smaller,” Monroe says, “way smaller than a virus.”
“Are you talking about …” Williams starts to say, but he is interrupted by Jim leaping off the bed and slamming himself against the solid reinforced cage.
All of them jump back except Wilder, who immediately unholsters his Glock. He has a bead on the subject.
“Stand down, Wilder,” Butsko calmly says, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder. “That’s reinforced polymer, and your bullets are useless against it. There’s no way he’s gonna get out of there.”
The subject suddenly drops to the floor, as if he’s just realized he is dead. They stand there looking at Jim’s lifeless body.
“Okay,” Wilder says, turning to face everyone. “Someone needs to tell me why this dead man keeps waking up and then apparently dying over and over again.” He looks everyone in the eyes. No one responds--not because of some bullshit clearance level, but because no one in that room appears to have any answers.
After a few minutes passed, Butsko orders a few men to get into their hazmat suits and put the subject back on the bed. “This time, put the restraints on,” Butsko says as the two men walk into the containment room.
Before either man has a chance to shut and seal the door behind them, Jim jumps up and immediately attacks the man closest to him. He is like an animal as he lands on the first guy’s back. With no hesitation, he tears off the helmet of the hazmat suit and bites off the soldier’s cheek. Blood shoots all over Jim’s face and chest as he chews and then spits the piece of cheek onto the floor.
The soldiers are unarmed. Wilder immediately runs to the thick door and is about to go inside.
“Stop!
”
Butsko yells, but it is too late. Wilder runs into the cage knowing Laning and Reynolds would be right behind him for backup.
Jim throws the cheek-less soldier head first into the wall of the cage, immediately knocking him out. He then turns to the other soldier, and with the speed and strength of an attacking tiger, rips through the back of his hazmat suit and bites into the base of the soldier’s neck, severing his spine. They both drop to the floor as blood shoots everywhere. Jim continues to tear into the man’s neck as he chews on the exposed spinal cord.
Wilder aims and fires two rounds in quick succession. He hits the subject once in the back and the other in his shoulder.
Jim jumps off the bloodied soldier and looks Wilder right in the eyes. Wilder immediately shoots off another three rounds, hitting him dead center in his chest. Jim goes down.
“Sir, sir,” comes a panicked voice through the intercom system on the wall. “Sir, are you there?” the voice is pleading.
“Yes, I’m here!” Butsko shouts into the intercom. “We have a situation we’re dealing with right now.” Jim is laying still on the ground. For now.
They all hear screams over the intercom. “What the hell is going on over there?” Butsko shouts.
“The animals, Sir.
”
The voice on the intercom is breaking up, almost as if the man talking can’t keep his finger on the ‘talk’ button.
Butsko’s eyes go wide. “Take a deep breath, soldier, and tell me what the hell is going on over there.” Wilder nods to Laning and Reynolds and the two of them run toward the lab that houses all the animals.
“Mitchell and Torrence are dead, Sir,” the soldier reports. “The animals just started going crazy. The monkey attacked Mitchell and then opened the cages to the other animals. Oh my God!” he shouts. “Riley is bleeding real bad, Sir. They’re killing them! Those fucking animals are killing them!”
“I need you to calm down,” Butsko says. “What is your position?”
“I… I’m in the office in the animal lab. I’m under the desk now. Wait. I think I hear something… aaaahhhhhhh!” The line goes dead. The last thing they hear over the intercom is something that sounds like a dog growling.
Butsko is pale white. “What the fuck are we dealing with here?” he asks no one in particular.
“Behind you!” shouts one of the lab techs. Wilder spins around to see Jim has gotten back up and is running straight toward him. Wilder reacted with three burst shots. He shoots a round into Jeff’s chest, quickly followed by a round to his head. He does this three times in a row. There is no way he is getting back up.
Three soldiers run into the lab and Butsko tells them to lock it down. Then he and Wilder run to the animal lab. As they get closer, they hear gunfire and screams as animals continue to tear through soldiers and lab techs alike. The animals are beginning to spill out into the main corridor.
“Lock that room down!” Butsko shouts to no one in particular. “Nothing gets out of that lab!” He doesn’t even know if anyone inside the lab was still alive.
***
Laning and Reynolds reach the lab and can hear the screams even before they open the thick door. Laning runs into the room first, his Glock raised before him, firing and hitting anything on four feet. Reynolds has his back, making sure nothing is behind them. Lanning feels overwhelmed. The animals are all throughout the lab. Some are crawling on the walls, some on the ceiling, and most of them are running wild on the ground.
Laning looks around as he fires his pistol, trying to see if he can locate any techs or other soldiers who might still be alive. He sees four bodies on the floor. None of them are moving. He turns to say something to Reynolds when he sees a house cat sailing through the air, seconds away from landing on Reynolds’ shoulder. He raises his gun, but the shot isn’t there.
“Reynolds!” Laning yells over to him. “Get down.” On instinct, Reynolds immediately hits the ground. When you’ve been in and survived as many battles as Reynolds has, they know that when someone yells ‘duck,’ you duck.
Reynolds rolls to the left as he hits the ground. Laning fires and hit the cat in the chest, propelling it across the room and slamming it into the wall. When he looks down at Reynolds, he knows they are far from safe.
A large dog has spotted Reynolds on the floor and is creeping closer to him. Laning has run over to the closest body to check for any signs of life. There is none. The lab tech’s throat has been torn out and one of his eyes is dangling on his cheek, hanging by the optical nerve.
When he turns to check on Reynolds, he stops dead in his tracks. The dog has already advanced on Reynolds and has him pinned to the ground. Laning sees Reynolds trying to raise his gun up enough to fire off a round, but the weight of the dog keeps him down. The dog opens its slobbering mouth and lowers its huge head. In one snapping bite, the dog rips off Reynolds’ lower jaw, exposing jagged bone and his tongue. As his exposed tongue wags back and forth, a raccoon pounces on his chest and tore out his tongue.
Laning empties his gun into the dog that butchered Reynolds. As he reloads, he can hear Wilder and Butsko shouting in the hallway. He knows the animals are getting out, but there is nothing he can do. He is out-manned, or “animal-ed,” as the case might be. He is in survival mode. The mission is lost and now he just needs to survive to fight another day.
Just as he sees Wilder walking into the lab, something catches his eye to his right. He turns with his gun raised and manages to get off two rounds before his arm a tiger removes his arm with one swipe of its claws. Laning screams as he sees the tiger getting ready to come in for the kill.
The last thing he ever sees is the unnatural gaping jaws of the beast coming down on him.
6
The gift shop looks untouched. Everything is where it always is. After Fi and I drink some water, we have some snacks. I feel a little more energized and am ready to get us the fuck out of there.
I keep Fi close to me at all times. I haven’t fooled myself for one second into thinking that we are safe behind these glass doors. I look out the front window that overlooks the parking lot. I guess my car is about fifty feet away. It may as well have been two-thousand feet away.
We are out of options. There is only one thing to do: make a run for the car and hope the animals will leave us alone like they did when we ran to the gift shop. I can’t help that negative voice deep inside my head from asking,
How much longer do you think your luck is gonna hold out?
Behind the register is a small office that has a desk, a chair, a coat rack, and not much else. Unless I can MacGyver an adding machine into a shotgun, there is nothing in the office of use. I notice a closet door behind the coat rack. “What the hell?” I say. “Let’s see what’s in the closet.”
“Be careful, Daddy,” Fi says as she reaches out and prevents my hand from opening the closet door.
I look down at her, wink, and nod. I turned the door handle slowly and crack the door open.
Nothing jumps out.
I open it wider and immediately jump on top of Fi as something comes into view. One thought goes through my mind,
This is how it ends: looking in a closet
.
“What are you doing, Daddy?” Fi says underneath me.
I look up slowly and notice the “creature” isn’t moving. “Sorry, sweetie,” I say as I stand, helping Fi to her feet. “I saw the…” I let my thought trail off as I stab a finger toward the thing in the closet.
I take a closer look and realize the creature is actually a thick foam body suit, like the kind used to train attack dogs. This is a good find. A plan is coming together. I grab the suit and look it over, making sure there are no holes and that it isn’t falling apart. I ignore the most obvious question: Why the hell does the zoo have a foam protective suit? My guess is that, since they’re an animal rescue preserve, they have to go out and get a wild animal every once in a while.
I try the suit on to see if it is bulky enough to fit the two of us. I should have known that would have been way too easy. I remove the suit and tell Fi she is going to wear it and that we were are to make a run for the car. I put her into the suit and she completely disappears into it.
Fuck
, I think. If I attempt to cut the suit down for Fi, it would probably fall apart and become useless. Nothing is easy today.
“Okay, Fi,” I say changing the plan, “I want you to get into the suit, keeping your hands, head, and feet tucked into it.”
“Like a turtle, right, Daddy?”
“That’s right, just like a turtle. I’m gonna carry you and run to the car.” I don’t like this plan at all, but we are running out of time and options. These fuckers could attack at any moment.