Stage 6
Authors: Dylan James
By Dylan James
C
ONTENTS
Prologue
The Scientist bolted through his office door and turned to slam it shut behind him. Crying and trembling with fear he quickly dragged his desk back to the door to barricade it. Without realizing it, his gaze became fixed on the revolver he held in his left hand. “One bullet left,” he muttered.
Not that he was up to using it. The sound of movement outside his office startled him, and he put the gun on his desk. His hand shook as he grabbed his phone off the desk and hesitantly dialed the phone number of the Head Researcher at the institution, Jonathon M. Howard. “Pick up, pick up! Please God, pick up...”
An automated response greeted his futile pleas, and he swore. There was more movement outside the office. He fixed his gaze on the door and listened for what seemed an eternity to, “After the tone, please leave a message. Beep.” He whispered violently, “Jon! I need help. I need...” The Scientist looked around at his surroundings, and faintly detected what sounded like snarls outside his office. He saw no exits other than the door, and no way to barricade the door for long. He said aloud, “I don’t know what I need...”
Then suddenly, with a new resolve and a hard look in his face, he stood up straight and said, “Jon. The strange virus they sent us, the one with the new project we just got in. Have nothing to do with it! It- It changes us Jon. Carl, Beth, the others; they’re all gone.”
Something slammed against the door, interrupting his message. He glanced at the door, which would have been already broken if not for the desk propped up to reinforce it. He amended his statement, “Well... Not gone. Jon this virus, it affects us in ways I can’t even comprehend. I’ve killed people today Jon. They were my colleagues, my friends. And I killed them.”
He was interrupted again, as the door shattered under the pressure of beating hands. Hurriedly, The Scientist continued, “Jon, under NO circumstance should you continue research on this virus. Destroy it if you can Jon! Promise me that!”
The desk lurched back and the splintered door opened the rest of the way, revealing the attackers. The Scientist grimly surveyed his Infected colleagues, who were now barely recognizable. He locked eyes with the leader of the group. At first it stood virtually still, as blood dripped from its mouth and from cuts all over its body. Then it snarled, and began to haul itself over the desk. The Scientist said, “Hello Carl.”
He reached over and picked his gun off the desk. Carl climbed over and fell to the ground, and then began to stand up and reach hungrily with his outstretched arms. One of the others behind him let out a high pitched scream, almost as if celebrating the end of the hunt. The Scientist backed up against the wall, and then decisively put his gun against his head. He shouted, “Good luck Jon!” and pulled the trigger.
It was summer break, and as a seventeen-year-old high school senior, I was trying to make my free time last. I had just finished playing a four-hour marathon of Call of Duty with my friends. We played really badly; nobody could focus with all the recent news reports of people going violently insane. The first report came a little over a month ago. Then a few more showed up on the news. After a while, it became a daily occurrence. Then when the broadcast came a few days ago advising all healthy individuals to stay indoors, that freaked us out. After that, it didn’t help when plans for a state-wide Containment were leaked online at some conspiracy website. My Mom and I were scared enough that we had a serious conversation about leaving, but our lives are here. One of my friends was convinced we were being chemically attacked by an enemy nation. A few months ago I would have thought he was crazy, but now... I figured the best thing to do was to play it safe, and wait for the people in charge to take care of it, whoever they were. I was resting my eyes and petting my two year old German shepherd Hunter, when my mom, Jane walked in. “Mom, there’s nothing to eat.”
“You say that every day Jack, but if you would get up off your butt once in a while you’d see that our pantry is just full of food, waiting for you to eat,” she replied.
We’d had this conversation many times before. I was about to reply sarcastically, when Hunter barked as we heard some loud noises from our next door neighbor’s house. A guy called Devin lived there with his dad. I didn’t pay much attention as I didn’t like him very much. He was always having his girlfriend Lucy over, and I didn’t agree with the way he treated her. I peered out the window to check it out. There was nothing, so I ignored it and turned away.
“What was that,” my mom asked?
“It was nothi-”
Just then a loud scream came from next door, and we could distinctly hear crying.
As I hurled myself to the window again, my mom nervously said, “Oh those neighbors of ours always getting into fights...”
I saw Lucy run out of his house, closely followed by Devin who was covered in blood. They turned at the side walk and stopped, as if at a loss for what to do next. Lucy’s eyes caught mine in the window, watching her, and then screamed as a man ran out of their house. They started running towards my front door.
“Mom! Devin- he’s bleeding and there’s some maniac chasing him! I’ll get the door you call the police!”
As I ran towards the front door she screamed after me, “What are you talking about?”
I replied already shaking from the adrenaline, “Just get the phone and call! They’re screaming!”
I could tell my words got to her as she heard more screams and she grabbed the phone. I unlocked the front door and ran outside, “Devin, Lucy, over here!”
They bolted past me and I slammed the door behind them, securely locking it. Devin collapsed on the couch, shaking in terror while Lucy just stood there as if in shock. My dog was staring at them, growling and snarling at Devin. He was interrupted however by a huge THUD! I jumped as I looked at the door and saw what could barely be recognized as Devin’s dad repeatedly slamming his face into the window, trying to break it.
I shouted in barely coherent English, “Devin what the hell is going on!? Why is your dad trying to kill you?”
Devin couldn’t talk, just sat there shaking back and forth. I looked at Lucy and she looked back at me, distantly. Hunter ignored her, but sat rigidly watching Devin. She said nothing for a few seconds and my patience was running out as blood was smearing all over our windows.
Then all of sudden she started talking rapidly, “I just don’t know what happened I was with Devin and we were sitting on the couch when his Dad came in and we just... looked at each other for a few seconds. He was acting weird, and suddenly said he was going to lie down in his room and rest... We just laughed about it, and then just a few minutes later Devin’s father came out of his room. But, he didn’t look like he normally did. Devin jumped up to ask if he was okay, but then his Dad just attacked him! He started clawing at Devin’s face and trying to pin him to the ground. Devin was screaming in shock and pain and I grabbed a chair and smashed it on his dad’s head. Devin yelled and we both ran out of the house, but his dad just-”
She was cut off as my mom came into the room and asked fearfully, “Can you hear the sounds in the neighborhood? There are screams everywhere, and no sirens.” She then added almost as an afterthought, “The police station was down or there were too many calls or something, because no one answered.”
We all looked at each other for a long second, and then I asked, “Maybe we should try the T.V. or radio stations?”
Our only radio was outside in the shed, and nobody was going to volunteer to leave the safety of the house. I went to turn the T.V. on.
I flipped the power on, and quickly found the nearest news station. Lucy dropped her phone in shock as we saw what was happening. The live footage was showing mobs of people chasing others and pinning them down. Store windows were broken, and we could see in the distance one building on fire. There were car wrecks littered in the street. The news feed cut to a helicopter camera, and we could see the entire city was dissolved in riots. We looked at each other in silence, until my Mom cleared her throat and said, (as the only adult in the room),
“Well we can assume that these people, whatever their problem is, are extremely dangerous and not in their right mind. Perhaps some sort of drug that has gotten into the water supply or something? I think all we can do is wait here until somebody gets back in control.”
It sounded wise to me considering the circumstances, and Lucy was nodding as well. This was interrupted as Devin’s dad smashed through the window by the front door, and reached his arm through trying to grab anything in range. Hunter was a few feet back from the window barking madly. Paralyzed, we watched as Devin’s dad attempted to squeeze himself through the window. Luckily it was a small gap, and we could see there was no way anything the size of a human was going to fit through it. We watched as the glass shards from the window began to cut and tear at his skin. I suggested as politely as I could, “Perhaps we should try and make this a more secure house? I don’t look forward to sleeping with whatever that is out there trying to get inside.”
My mom agreed, “Alright that sounds like a good idea. Jack, you get the spare wood and nails from the garage, and Lucy is it? We’ll start moving furniture to block the large windows.”
Lucy looked in horror at all of our numerous windows and our rather large sliding glass door in the back.
It was lucky that we had agreed to let a friend store his building supplies at our house while he went out of town a few weeks back, and several hours passed as I sawed down the extensive supply of wood to fit the windows and nailed it into place. In some areas I used a power drill to screw the boards in more securely. During this time there were a few more reports from different news channels, all of them conflicting with each other, and nobody seemed to know exactly what was going on. Devin was silent, moody, and unhelpful throughout this process, but I let it slide considering his own father had just tried to eat him. By night, all the windows except the two in the kitchen were secured with boards, and the sliding glass door was only guarded by a couch. Unfortunately, however we had run out of wood. Exhausted, we all collapsed by the kitchen table.
Lucy timidly asked, “Why not chop this table down and use it?”
I was about to shoot her suggestion down, when I realized she was right. We could chop down all of our remaining furniture and use the wood to board up the windows. I set to work quickly, as it was already dark outside. I secured the upper half of our sliding glass door with the table, and then pushed our old grand piano up tight against the bottom half. We then chopped down several large wooden doors throughout our house, and used them to secure our last two unprotected windows. Satisfied with my work, I went around the house to double check that I hadn’t forgotten anything. At about midnight, after making sure there were no unprotected entrances, I pulled a chair to the living room and sat to sort out my thoughts while Lucy and Devin sat together and watched the T.V. Lucy was obviously trying to be affectionate, but Devin was barely acknowledging her presence. My mom was off towards the front door, keeping an eye on Devin’s dad. I went to join them on the couch, sitting on the far side of Lucy. We sat that way for several minutes, when Devin suddenly stopped moving. I assumed he had fallen asleep, and Lucy was about to say something when she was suddenly cut off as Hunter growled and rushed towards Devin. I moved to restrain him when suddenly Devin went into spasms and started vomiting up blood. I backed up, not knowing what to do. Lucy just stared, shock and horror on her face. Devin started lashing out and suddenly stood up and locked eyes with me. Hunter barked and moved between us, and I instinctively knew what was about to happen. Devin lunged towards me at the same time I made a dash for the kitchen. Hunter let loose a vicious snarl and jumped on Devin as I bolted past him and grabbed one of our steak knives on the kitchen counter. I turned around to see Devin kick Hunter away and crouch down towards him trying to strangle him. Enraged at the abuse of my dog I ran towards Devin and shoved him off and onto the floor. He slowly got to his feet and reached out at me.
I yelled, “Devin stop! What the hell is wrong with you?” His eyes flashed, and I stabbed him straight in the heart as he dove towards me. Lucy screamed as Devin sank to the floor, still moving with his arms out stretched towards me. Blood began to pool on the floor, and he began crawling towards me. Grimacing, I ripped my knife out of him and stabbed him again and again until he stopped moving all together. I stood there in silence as my mom, Lucy, and I slowly gathered our thoughts about what had happened.