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  Z-Minus V

  Perrin Briar

  4.03 am

  Dr. Emanuel Phillips’ expensive black rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the shiny white terrazzo floor. One shoe dragged behind the other, the leg lame and unresponsive. His white doctor’s coat flapped behind him, torn along the hem. He struggled to catch himself with each hop forward.

  His lame leg twisted. He tripped. His long face struck the floor, knocking a tooth loose. He panted, his hot breath steaming up the terrazzo. He looked up at the door ahead, his long straggling hair framing either cheek. So close.

  His fingers curled around the vial of blood in his hand. Scrawled on its label was the name ‘Scott, Margaret’. She had been one of the most powerful and rich people in the city. Had been. She had since been relegated to the past tense.

  Every time Dr. Phillips saw her she’d worn a gold turtle pendant encrusted with jewels on her dress’s lapel. She had insisted on attaching it to her gown whenever forced to wear one. Dr. Phillips never found out the story behind it.

  Margaret had belonged to the Scotts clan, a rich and powerful New York family, number one in the social rankings. Their exploits were often splashed across the newspaper society pages, challenging even Hollywood celebrities for coverage.

  People looked up to them, in awe, believing them to be something more than human, as if their DNA was encoded with a special success formula. And the truth was they were different. But not like everyone assumed. They were on the other side of the scales. They were less than human.

  Inhuman howls echoed up the corridor. Dr. Phillips cast a fretful look over his shoulder and shuddered. They’re getting closer. He climbed to his feet and loped forward.

  The previous evening, Margaret Scott had come in complaining of a headache. She often did. Dr. Phillips went through the motions. Margaret Scott was the type to go to hospital if she felt even only a slight pain, thinking it was a tumor. There would be no “pleases” or “thank yous.” The situation was understood by both parties. She paid – and paid a great deal – for the very best service money could buy, even if that service never amounted to anything. Pleasantries were not included.

  People in the Scott family’s position were always the most likely to be hypochondriacs. They had everything, and wanted to remain on top, stretching out their meaningless lives for as long as possible. They had too much money, more than they could ever hope to spend.

  They were meant to be philanthropists, champions of a better world, but the Scotts only ever made contributions to divert attention from an embarrassing event caused by a Scott family member.

  Like the Scott hospital wing. It had been revealed with much pomp and flashing cameras, but it was really to disguise the unsavory acts of a distant relation during his time as a Catholic minister. An army of PR personnel kept their image pristine. Woe betide anyone who got on the Scott’s bad side.

  Unfortunately for Dr. Phillips, today he was that person.

  Dr. Phillips began as he always did when Margaret came in with an ‘illness’ – by giving her a bunch of meaningless tests, and then taking her to a private room to relax while they processed her results.

  Dr. Phillips barely gave the scans a glance – there was never anything wrong with the woman – and was about to set them aside when something caught his eye. He was surprised to find there actually was something wrong with Margaret Scott.

  A cold sweat had broken across Dr. Phillips’ brow. His hands shook and turned slick with sweat. Was this the day he’d been dreading for the past twenty years? The day when she actually had something wrong with her? Something he couldn’t resolve? Something terminal?

  If she died, his name would be splashed across the papers, alongside a picture of Margaret Scott’s coffin. Maybe they’d even print a photo of him beside it, smiling inanely at the camera, only now it would look like an evil smirk, as if he’d planned all along on letting one of the stars of the New York social scene die.

  Over the years, the business he’d received from treating a Scott was substantial. He would casually mention to a potential new customer that he treated a Scott, and it was all he needed to get them to sign on the dotted line.

  Dr. Phillips worked for a private New York hospital. Connected to it was the Biology Research Institute, for the study of various diseases and development of new modern technology. It was the door to the research center he was heading to now. It was big and thick.

  He’d peered at the results, his mind blank. There were a million things that could have caused Margaret’s symptoms. A cold, a flu, anything. She had certainly caught something. A virus, perhaps. And there were hundreds, thousands, of varieties it could be. They had no choice but to wait for more symptoms to present themselves.

  Dr. Phillips had grimaced. Margaret Scott was not going to like that. Perhaps if he could identify where she might have caught it he could ascertain what she had. Was there a recent outbreak of something in the area? He shook his head. He wasn’t aware of anything.

  Margaret Scott was often hobnobbing with the cream of society, with explorers and travelers and other high achievers. She had never caught anything from them before. So where had she gotten this virus?

  He’d questioned her. She’d often said she attended various events and met various people, far too many for her to recall their names. She’d also been in attendance of her granddaughter Elsa’s birthday party. Dr. Phillips had smiled politely and left the room.

  He’d almost fainted. He was afraid. If Margaret Scott had caught something at an event it was unreasonable to assume she had been the only one. It could have infected a hundred people, a thousand maybe. They would all then travel back to their corner of the world, go about their business, and infect more and more people.

  That was why they were working with the Charlotte Research Center in North Carolina to create a system that would remove the possibility of a worldwide pandemic, to stop it in its tracks before it had a chance to get a foothold.

  Society was more fragile than most people realized. A thin veneer of safety protocols did little to really protect them. They certainly did little to protect Margaret Scott.

  Within a few hours, she was dead.

  All efforts to revive her had failed. Blood had poured from her orifices. Dr. Phillips didn’t much like Margaret, but no one deserved to die like that. Dr. Phillips had pronounced her death, and it felt like it could have described his career too.

  And then Nurse Roberts had screamed, screamed at the sight of the sheet covering Margaret’s corpse as it rose, screamed as the sheet fell, revealing the horror beneath it, screamed as Margaret bit into her flesh.

  Dr. Phillips’ hand curled tighter around the vial of blood. The pack of screeching beasts were on his tail, lurching down the corridor toward him. Baying for him, baying for his blood.

  He reached into his pocket and took out a keycard. He swiped it through the machine terminal. The light above the door blinked red. He tried again. Another red light. Dr. Phillips, beginning to sweat now, took a deep breath and calmly slid the keycard through the terminal. The light winked green. The door began to open.

  Was it always this slow?

  The growls grew louder behind him. Dr. Phillips shuffled closer to the door, not bothering to wait for it to open all the way. He pressed a button on the terminal to close the door, but it kept opening wider. He hit the close button again. The door would not shut before it had completed its opening action.

  Come on, come on!

  The do
or clicked into place, gaping open like the doors to hell. Dr. Phillips hit a button on the terminal and it finally began to close.

  The shapes were dark lurching shadows, their faces turned up into grim masks. If they got to the door before it closed, the sensors would be tripped and the door would begin to open again. It was a safety door.

  Fuck safety! Dr. Phillips screamed in his mind. What about my safety?

  The harsh florescent lights cast a haunted glow over the three figures, their skin torn and hanging from their faces, their gowns and uniforms bloody and stained. Margaret Scott looked as she did in her nightmares: her skin hanging from her bones, like a living corpse, one that had awoken from its slumber to reenact some kind of vengeance on the living.

  The door whirred, low and reliable as it closed the gap…

  Six inches left…

  Five inches…

  Four inches…

  Still enough room for one of them to place a finger through, obstructing it. They were getting close.

  Three inches…

  Dr. Phillips edged backwards. Either the creatures were going to stop the door, or they were going to barely miss it.

  Two inches…

  One inch…

  Dr. Phillips didn’t see which floppy broken appendage had crossed the sensor, but something had. A red light flashed above the door. Obstruction. The door paused, as if considering what to do next. But Dr. Phillips already knew what it was going to do.

  It began to open.

  “No…” Dr. Phillips said, the blood draining from his face. “No!”

  He’d never been a brave man, had never had much need to be. He was a white collar worker who earned a high wage in one of the most prestigious hospitals in the city. He’d never faced real hardship, never felt the cold brush of desperation, though he saw it from his Mercedes on a daily basis.

  Death and danger headed his way, and he was afraid, terribly afraid. But they were going to get in, unless he did something.

  More out of fear than courage, he ran toward the terminal and bashed at the keyboard with his fist. His anger at the slow-moving door was now his potential salvation.

  A pair of arms reached in through the narrow gap, flailing wildly. Words flashed up on the screen. Dr. Phillips didn’t have time to read them. A red warning light flashed above the door twice in quick succession. Nonsense words to those uninitiated with code.

  Dr. Phillips hit the keys, but nothing happened. The terminal was frozen. But the door was frozen too. The red light spun like the light atop a police car.

  Through the glass in the door Dr. Phillips could see Margaret Scott’s anger. Her arms waved, gruesome and torn, like a monster’s flailing limbs.

  Dr. Phillips breathed a sigh of relief and backed up, barely daring to believe his good luck. He bumped into something behind him. He started, his hands flying open.

  Smash.

  It was a soft sound, the kind that dominates a large space, like someone dropping a fork in a canteen. The blood from Dr. Phillips’ face drained as he realized what had just happened.

  His hands were empty, no longer clutching the vial. The little container had morphed into a puddle of blood and glass at his feet.

  He turned to look at the machine behind him, protected on all sides by thick plastic casing. Its name was Archie, a twin of a model in various cities cross the US. The original was in Charlotte. It was only a prototype. They had run basic tests on it, but nothing like the purpose it was originally designed for. But there was no other option. There was no other sequencer in the building.

  Dr. Phillips leaned against the protective plastic casing and hung his head. It had been up to him to bring the sample here and put it into the machine, but he had failed. He’d failed in his goal, failed his friends and family. Failed the world. And he was trapped.

  But he was safe. The flailing arms weren’t going to get through any time soon. He had time to think of a new plan.

  Perhaps that was the best option: to wait until someone came to rescue him. Dr. Phillips cocked his head to one side. But perhaps not.

  Dr. Phillips reached into his pocket and took out a syringe. He extracted as much blood from the spillage on the floor as he could. It was a meagre amount. He approached the robotic arm and squirted the blood into a receptacle. A completion bar filled with progress before it flashed red and came up with:

  CONTAMINATED.

  A snort from behind the main door. Margaret Scott’s face pressed against the glass, smearing it with blood. Her growls splattered spittle, her turtle pendant shiny as ever. Even in death she was the recognized leader.

  And yet… Perhaps there was still a chance.

  Dr. Phillips approached a work desk, picked up a discarded syringe, and edged forward, toward the door. His mouth was dry. His heart beat in his throat. His proximity seemed to drive Margaret and her cohorts mad with rage.

  Dr. Phillips eyed the swiping, griping hands. He reached out, tentative at first, scrunched up his face in distaste, and grabbed one of the hands. It was bestrewn with jewels. It was Margaret’s hand. She lunged for him in an effort to grab him, and seized him by the coat.

  Her grip was strong. Her mouth appeared in the gap, her gums already bleeding, her perfect teeth cracked. They snapped at him, but Dr. Phillips wasn’t close enough for her to bite.

  Dr. Phillips held the hand steady. He plunged the syringe into Margaret’s arm. She didn’t even flinch. Dr. Phillips drew her blood. The procedure complete, he pulled at Margaret’s grip, but she wouldn’t let go.

  He hacked at Margaret’s arm with the syringe’s needle, but she did not relent. Her blood sprayed over the floor, door, and Dr. Phillips’ shoes. She howled. Not in pain, but anger.

  Dr. Phillips slipped on the blood stain and hit the floor. The arm came with him, and then dragged him toward the gap. Dr. Phillips spun around and put his feet against the door, one on either side of the gap in a crouched position. He pushed as hard as he could. But the hand would not release.

  A nurse’s face appeared in the gap and snapped at his ankles. Dr. Phillips moved his feet apart, barely out of reach, and raised his foot. He heeled the nurse in the face. She growled at him, but the blow didn’t seem to register. She was going to get him if he couldn’t get free of Margaret’s grip.

  Dr. Phillips shrugged his shoulders and pulled himself free of his jacket. The arm retracted, pulling the jacket through the gap. The three figures looked at it, searching through it, biting at it like ravenous wolves, and then tore it to shreds.

  They turned back to the gap. They thrust their arms through, waving and energetic.

  Dr. Phillips allowed himself a small smile of relief. He chuckled and got to his feet.

  The arms flapped around the inside of the door, angry and aggressive. One arm smacked ineffectively against the door control terminal.

  Dr. Phillips froze. For the second time that day he could see what was going to happen.

  “No!” he said. “No! No!”

  Margaret grinned, as if knowing what she was doing. Her arm banged against the control terminal, this time striking the large green ‘open’ button. The nonsense words on the screen flickered and disappeared. The light above the door flashed green.

  And then the door began to open.

  Dr. Phillips edged back, eyes wide. He was doomed.

  But he still had the syringe in his hand. He’d read with awe about people behaving bravely in the most desperate of situations, putting themselves at risk in order to save others – even people they didn’t know. Dr. Phillips had never taken a risk if a safe option was available. But there was no safer option now. No choice.

  They all need to be warned.

  He turned to the machine and put the syringe into the receptacle. The grunts and roars behind him were jubilant, victorious, loud without obstruction.

  Dr. Phillips kept his eyes on the machine. If he couldn’t see them, they weren’t real.

  The progress meter appeared, performed a circle,
and then flashed with:

  ACCEPTED.

  Dr. Phillips opened the messaging system and attached the developing results file. He raised his hand to hit the Enter key.

  That was when they fell upon him.

  Three mouths bit into him viciously, deeply, deliciously. One attached itself to his left arm, another to his waist, and the third just below the knee. The shock cancelled out any pain, at least for the first few seconds.

  Dr. Phillips tugged, pulling against them, to no avail. They gripped him tight, pinning him to the Perspex guard wall. Dr. Phillips had his eyes fixed firmly on the computer monitor.

  ‘Send?’ the console asked blithely.

  The Enter key loomed large, taking up Dr. Phillips’ whole vision, his whole world.

  His blood seeped from his wounds in copious amounts. He felt cold. It wouldn’t take long for him to pass into unconsciousness. The worst thing about being a doctor was knowing what was happening to you when you were sick or dying.

  He reached out a trembling hand. He had to be careful not to hit the wrong key. His fingers shook. He reached over…

  His hand fell…

  And hit the Enter key.

  Dr. Phillips managed a small smile before Margaret appeared in his vision. She wrapped her teeth around his throat and tore out a chunk of his flesh, snapping his esophagus. Blood squirted over the plastic partition wall. Dr. Phillips pressed his free hand to his wound, but it did nothing to dampen the flood.

  The aggressors shifted position. Dr. Phillips fell to the floor. He was as helpless as a newborn lamb.

  He stared at the gold turtle pendant pinned to Margaret’s blouse. In Asia a turtle was considered a sign of longevity, of peace. He doubted that was going to last much longer in the world. It certainly hadn’t for Dr. Phillips. Or Margaret.

  He screamed as Margaret found his soft belly and tore it open, her hands reaching in and removing his innards. The pain was excruciating, dulled only by the disbelief it was actually happening. Margaret Scott and her cohorts supped on him, slurping and chewing and groaning in satisfaction.