There's a knock at the door and I abruptly jump out of bed. I pull the sheets around my body and walk to the door, "Emma, do you want to join me down at the lab? There's something I think you'll find interesting." Darryl invites me after we say good morning.
I gratefully accept the invitation and say that I'll meet him there in a few minutes. When I turn back around, Aiden is up and staring at me from his half of the bed. The group only had one room to share so we were forced to share a bed. I change in the corner while Aiden politely looks down.
I open the door and go down the narrow hallway. The floor tiles are dusty from grime. Every now and then the lights will flicker because of the out of date back up generator.
Finally, after what seems like hundreds of twist and turns, I reach a door marked LAB: CLASSIFIED. I look around as if entering was illegal but brush away the thought and acknowledge that Darryl invited me here.
Instead of seeing a large open room laid out in front of me, there's a spiral staircase circling downwards. I grip the railing and descend the steps. A golden glow spills upwards from the lab. "Hello?" I ask the emptiness, as I finish the steps.
Darryl steps out from a back room and welcomes me to his lab.
"What are you working on down here?" I look at the damp brick walls. There are metal tables laid out, each one with tiny colourful vials of chemicals and little flasks of clear liquid.
"Working on a cure," he says and then issues me towards a microscope. I peer down into one of the flasks. Tiny spheres with growths coming from the sides are what I see. They look like some sort of virus. This must be what is killing everyone. I am witnessing it first hand.
"What I've been doing is infecting people with the disease," he continues "but don't worry, they're all volunteers. I've been monitoring it as it take over the body. It's remarkable, really. It multiplies at quadruple the rate of a human embryo. That means every two minutes, the virus doubles in size. This leaves a short time for inoculation. I've developed these microscopic cameras that attach to the virus so I can see how it attacks the body. What I found was that it doesn't directly attack the flesh that has been bitten and infected by the saliva. Instead, it travels through the blood straight to the brain. That's where it attacks but as it goes to the brain, it leaves a tiny trail of cells to fight off antibody
production. These cells take over immune cells, preventing them from working against the virus, and making them work for the disease," Darryl looks up to make sure I follow and I nod as he continues.
"As I said, it directly infects the immune system. This leaves a two hour window to inject the serum, therefore I hypothesize that vaccinating before hand is an important precaution. As I was saying, the virus attacks the brain, but leaves only the brain stem and parts of the frontal lobe alive. Then, it hijacks the control, manipulating the being into attacking others. The rest of their brain decays and the individual inside is lost. So, in order for this to work, we need to inject very soon after the bite has occurred."
Darryl summons me to another table and holds up a vial of pale blue liquid. "This is Serum #127; I believe that it will work. What this does is it travels through the whole blood system and retakes the virus cells. The uninfected cells then attack more of their own cells. In the brain, a protein called Progerin is produced from the virus. This genetically alters the DNA, causing it to die prematurely. To put a stop to this, I will create a counter virus that will return the code to normal. These two forces combined should return
the individual to normal. I called you down here because today, we are trying it out for the first time. " I gasp, what if this actually works? What if we solve this puzzle right now?
Darryl calls out and a man comes out, pushing a trolley. On the trolley is a body. "This is Mark and Olivia. Olivia was bit this morning, and Mark is our brave soul that will get injected with the serum and then volunteer to get bit." I introduce myself, as Darryl lays him down on a table. He slides the serum into a needle and holds it up to Mark's neck. He firmly pushes down on the plunger. For a brief moment, Mark's face contorts to a painful expression as the vaccine rushes through his veins; to his heart and brain, everywhere.
Darryl tells Mark to stay still and wait. While we anticipate the results, Darryl gets another Vial of Serum #127 and hands me the needle. "Would you like to do the honors?" I nod and stand next to Olivia on the bed. I am grateful that he acknowledges my interest and capability in medicine. "Preferably close to the bite," he directs me, as I plunge the needle down, two inches from a purple-blue bite mark on Olivia's bicep.
"I don't know how long the results will take but I will warn you, I have experienced failure, and a lot of it. I won't be surprised if this one doesn't work out. You need to be ready to not succeed." Darryl's voice goes serious and I look straight into his eyes to prove that I'm listening. I stare back at the subject and wait. Darryl takes Mark to a back room. When he returns, there's a painful looking gash on his arm.
I look to where they came from. There must be a hoard of biters in there. I shudder at the thought. Mark lies down for the long haul and then leans in close to Darryl, saying, "If I turn, shoot me; don't even hesitate, not for one second. I won't be one of those monsters." I sit down in a hard metal chair, my heart slowly faltering of hope. Forever goes by; each minute dragging on for millennia. Eventually, after hours, Olivia's arm flops over, "Darryl, get over here, something's happening." I yell urgently. I look up to see that Mark is still... too still. I strap him down in case he has turned. Just as I finish the last strap, his neck curls up towards my face, his eye's fly open in the dull colour of the infected. It didn't work. I scream and scramble away from the monster. Darryl rushes in and immediately shoots him in the head; the sound is deafening
and final. He covers the corpse in a light sheet and then goes through another door that when opened, a sickly scent wanders out. The smell of death; decaying bodies is what lies in there. When I turn around to gag, I find another pair of eyes staring back at me; human.