Extinct (AM13 Outbreak Series), page 14
But why?
What would be the point in learning all about a virus if we’re all going to die from it? Who is he thinking about “writing all of this down” for? I know Michael seems to have a notion that this has to do with “survival-of-the-fittest,” but surely he isn’t dumb enough to realise that there is no survival with this? Even he won’t survive.
So what exactly is he doing?
There’s clearly something I’m missing, and wandering around procrastinating isn’t getting me anywhere. I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and ask him…
Just as I’m about to turn to ask, I see a sight that stops my heart forever.
Andy.
He’s lying across a table, a large knife sticking out of his forehead, evidently completely and utterly dead. But it’s more than that. His face isn’t his anymore. His jaw has been torn, revealing a set of yellowing, bloodied teeth, his skin has the familiar slight grey twinge that a recently infected has and one of his legs is completely missing, as if it’s been crudely hacked off by someone who has no idea what they’re doing.
The blood seeping from his wound his blackened. Not as black as my blood, but black enough.
What the fuck?
He isn’t infected, he never was. He wasn’t bitten, I know that for certain. There’s no way the virus could have gotten to him—that makes no sense whatsoever. So why does it look like he’s been killed because of it? How can he have gone from the man I knew, the one that helped me on this mission, to the guy that was slumped over his meal, to this? What did I miss?
My brain is going crazy, flicking all over the images it’s seen in recent times—but nothing, not one thing gives this nightmare any sense.
There just wasn’t enough time to go from that to this!
My hand is slapped over my mouth as I look him over once more. To the left of him lies Hugo, in bits and pieces, to the right, Noah—or a zombie version of him, at any rate.
When? I don’t understand when!
I wouldn’t put it past Michael to do this—after everything I’ve seen from him. The why and how just isn’t worth thinking about.
It’s just the when. This would all take so much time. It’s impossible!
“This can’t be happening,” I hear myself murmur, sounding more human than I have done in a while. “It makes no sense.”
I turn, I lay my gaze upon Michael. He chuckles at the confusion on my face. What the fuck is wrong with this guy? Does he not care about all the people he is needlessly killing in a world where only a few humans remain? Is he not bothered at all about the effect that seeing this was going to have on me? Or Tom?
Tom.
This time, when my eyes rest upon him, he looks different. Paler, more afraid. He has no right to feel that way. It’s his fault this nutcase is still alive; all these deaths are his responsibility. All of this blood is on his hands as much as Michael's. Even if he wasn’t expecting Michael to do all of this, to go this far, he still led me here, Andy here…all of us. Into the unknown. Willingly into the arms of a murderer, of a psychopath.
“Oh God, Melody,” I hear Tom cry.
The arm, the one I was waving about before. I suddenly notice that it’s small, too little to be that of an adult. It belonged to a child before Michael played about with it; it was attached to Dr. Jones’s daughter, to Melody.
Disbelief paralyses me. This is too much, it’s too far.
She was a child!
“Don’t worry,” Michael says, resting a hand on his shoulder. “None of their sacrifices were in vain. They helped me secure it. They helped me create—”
He lifts his arm, indicating towards me. I don’t pay him any attention; I’m focusing on Tom, wanting to see where he’ll go next.
This is your chance. Kill that bastard, make all of this right.
I know he’ll never be able to atone for what he’s done, but finishing Michael off will at least ensure no one else can become one of his playthings. It’ll go some way to proving that he’s not a monster, that he didn’t want any of this. It’ll restore a tiny piece of my faith in him.
But he doesn’t.
He just stands there like a fucking idiot. His face is frozen; I imagine his limbs are too. He’s in shock, I realise, but that’s no Goddamn excuse. It’s too late for that. He doesn’t get to feel that way.
I move to do it instead. If Tom intends to be a wimp, then it must be up to me. But then Michael starts talking once more, distracting me.
“And the others.” Michael smiles widely, looking at Tom as if this information should comfort him.
Others?
Before I have the time to ask, they both look across the room to another area of this circus to the upside down corpses of a man and woman. They’ve had bits stripped from them—skin, fingers, eyeballs, limbs—but they are clearly still recognisable because Tom gasps their names.
“Pete. Emily.” I think I can hear a sob in his voice, but as I turn back to see him, his expression is still stony. “I sent them all the way here to help you. They travelled for miles, and for this? I didn’t kill them for a reason, I didn’t send them to be pawns in whatever the fuck it is that you’re doing! Oh God, if I’d just followed Parle’s orders, at least they would have had a painless, dignified death. God knows how much you made them suffer.”
I come to the conclusion that he must be referring to the people he didn’t kill back when he was here before—the ones that got him kicked off the mission. I remember him telling me the tale about how he’d helped them.
Clearly what he’d done wasn’t help!
“This was the only way they could help me,” Michael insists. “She thought she was a lot cleverer than she actually was, she thought she knew everything about AM13, safe to say she did not, and he was a right pain in the arse. He never stopped talking. He wouldn’t stop asking questions about things he had absolutely no right of knowing the answer to. What you sent me was far more of a hindrance than a help!” He pauses, looking thoughtful for a split second. “Actually to be fair, they were quite integral to my findings in a way, so I suppose you could say that what you did was great. They just couldn’t help me in the way I think you imagined.” He smirks. I expect this to anger Tom, but still he shows no emotion.
“Okay then, if all of these people have helped you, and I was a part of that.” Tom turns away from his butchered friends, away from me, towards Michael. I have no idea what he’s going to do right now, but I sense this is an important moment. Is he going to side with Michael—to continue on helping with this bizarre, fucked up mission, or is he going to prove himself to me that he is the good man I always thought he was? It’s now that I find out just how misplaced my trust really has been. “I think it’s time that you tell me exactly what it is you’re doing here. No more vague answers. I want the whole truth!”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
I let my eyes flicker between the two, waiting for one of them to speak. I’m glad Tom asked that question. If I’m dying here, I at least want to know what the fuck this guy has been up to, why he’s taken it upon himself to murder all those people.
I think I deserve that much.
Maybe I don’t. After all it doesn’t seem like I’ve actually done any good, but I thought I was. I was under the impression that I was on a life-saving, humanity-saving mission. For anyone that’s massive, but for someone like me, that’s colossal.
I wish it had turned out to be everything I’d believed it was going to be.
Tom caves and speaks first. “I just wanted to end this,” he whispers. I can see desperation filling his entire being as the words pass by his lips.
“Don’t be naïve, Tom. You know now that we can’t end this. There is no way of doing so. You want to know the truth? Fine!” He shifts on his feet, moving slightly away from Tom, all the while completely ignoring me. I wonder for a second if he’s completely forgotten I’m there. “As soon as I heard about the AM13 virus, I started doing some research—obviously I have a lot of connections within the…underground science world, shall we say?” Tom nods, but I have no idea what he’s on about. “This virus was obviously created. Anyone who knows anything about virology can see that. It’s man-made, which is why we have never seen anything like this before. Some people claimed that they knew who made it, but it’s one of those things we will never be certain of for sure. Whoever it was is dead now anyway.”
I want to ask how he knows that, but I’m afraid of breaking the moment and preventing Michael from carrying on.
“As the Lockdown started, so did my experiments. I did try curing AM13, of course I did—anyone in my position would. But I very quickly found out that it was absolutely impossible. So then I went for the next logical step—improving the virus. I thought if I could make our bodies survive being infected, rather than becoming a pathetic pile of mush, then maybe we wouldn’t have to completely…”
“What the fuck are you on about?” Tom yells, his sudden eruption making me jump. “You don’t think we can survive the infection, but maybe we can survive being infected? Are you nuts? Would you want to live like that? No brain function, eating other people, your body a fucking mess, a shell of yourself?” He finally shows some sort of emotion. “Oh God, there’s no point in trying to explain anything to you. How do you not understand what you’ve done?”
“Okay, let me word it another way.” Michael is unruffled by Tom’s outburst. “If someone out there, in the big wide world, has got a cure, wouldn’t you be glad that I helped you survive long enough for you to get it…”
“But you just said that there’s no hope of survival!”
“No, in my professional opinion, there isn’t.”
“So, you’re just happy for the entire world to be wiped out? You’re content for people to continue existing in that state. More monster than human. That isn’t a life, is it? You could have been using your brains for something useful. You could have helped everyone.”
“Don’t be so childish,” Michael sneers. “I’m not happy about it; I’m just realistic, which is more than I could say for you.”
“You are fucking crazy. How did I ever trust you? How did I not see what you really are?” Tom steps backwards, smacking his back against a table filled with metallic tools that have no doubt been used for torture.
There’s something inside of me, telling me to wait for the opportune moment, to let this play out first. Is it instinct, or something else?
“You don’t know anything. I didn’t just come to this conclusion, you know!” Michael turns to face Tom, fire blazing in his expression. “You’re stupid if you think this idea just came to me, that I didn’t try other ways first. I experimented a lot in the early days. I didn’t just get out a few fucking test tubes and play about—all the while, planning my world domination! Even early on, whilst I was doing my research into where the cure originated from, before it was widely accepted that the virus was going to be a significant danger. I tried to find an answer to it. I even thought I had at one point.”
He slumps into a seat, losing himself in his thoughts. I can sense that this is more truthful than anything he’s said before. There’s just a change within him—the arrogance has gone, the need to show off, to prove himself. Now we’re left with just him. I don’t know what’s brought the change about, but I’m grateful for it.
“There was a girl…Mia? Leah, maybe? I can’t remember her name—it isn’t important. Anyway, I thought she was going to be the one, the patient to prove my work’s success. I’d done so much experimentation, so much testing by that point, I was ready, but I’d never had a live person to test it on. What I needed was a very recently infected person to work with, to try the cure on—I’d quickly worked out that when the virus has started to damage your internal organs, even totally removing the virus from your blood will leave irreversible negative effects. It just wouldn’t ever be…practical.”
I suck in and hold my breath, sensing a stillness within Tom too. Michael looks at no one, concentrating on the floor instead.
I don’t know how I feel about the fact that Michael did actually try. Does that change my opinion of him? Do I now feel any different about what he’s done?
“I’d created what I was certain was an extremely effective cure from my work with the few infected specimens I’d managed to obtain by myself. Despite that, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get her to go along with what I wanted since she just walked in here. How do you say to someone ‘let me infect you, just so I can cure you—don’t worry, you might be patient zero, but I know this will work!’ She knew nothing about me, about what I knew and what I’d done, but I knew she was perfect for the trial. She was out during the Lockdown so I knew if it all went wrong, she wouldn’t be missed. She would simply be counted as another virus victim. I didn’t think it would come to that anyway.”
I look around again at this statement, quickly understanding why no one would instantly trust Michael, what with all the rusty cages, the body parts, the tools. I wish again that I’d noticed it sooner, that I’d trusted my gut instinct. Maybe then Melody, Andy, and the others would still be alive.
“I lied to her about all sorts of things to gain her trust—she was skittish, a bit like a mouse. She didn’t even realise that I was a scientist—she thought I was trapped here, a victim, so she wasn’t expecting it when I infected her with the virus, and gave her the cure all at once. I don’t know if she ever truly worked out what I’d done, I don’t think she was very intelligent, to be honest.” He smiles sadly at the distant memory of this girl. “I was naïve. I really thought I’d solved it. The other AM13 victims were leaving her well alone and she was only showing slight signs of being infected—she was still very human.” He sighs sadly, as if this story is his greatest disappointment. “But then, just like the rest of them, she fully turned. I think she held it off for a little longer than the others—but that might just be me trying to find some good in what I’d done. Anyway, the results were negative, in the end, the cure hadn’t worked, my experiments had failed. I left her out there, came back here. By that time her brain function was so minimal, she’d forgotten I was even there. The next time she would have looked at me, would have been to eat me. That’s when I realised that I wasn’t meant to cure this, that it isn’t possible…”
“So one failure and this is all ‘fate.’ One setback and suddenly you aren’t meant to cure this? That’s utter bullshit!” Tom intervenes, shaking with rage and fear.
“You have no fucking idea what you’re on about!” Michael roars, jumping to his feet. “That was my best work, that was the absolute best anyone could have come up with and the girl became a shambling mess, regardless! Don’t you dare look at me like I gave up. I didn’t give up; I just turned to another solution—that is what science is all about. I couldn’t cure it, but I’m not ashamed of that. Not now anyway.”
The glint returns to his eye, and he spins slowly to look at me. It seems he hasn’t forgotten about me after all.
“Now I’ve really done it.”
“Wha—what do you mean?” Tom asks, regarding me fearfully.
All of my nerves tingle. Why are they both looking at me that way? I know I’m infected, I know I look bad, but that isn’t it. The way they’re looking at me, it’s as if I’m…different.
“I’ve improved the virus.” Michael is gleeful, ecstatic by his own words. “I’ve really done it. Unfortunately it has adverse effects on the uninfected at the moment—a process I’m intending to tweak now that I’ve done a lot of research.” He indicates the bodies lying around the lab. “But it clearly works on the previously infected. I’d like a fresher sample with the next trial, because this one has sustained a lot of internal and external damage prior to my intervention, but anyway it’s a massive step in the right direction, just look at her.”
Me? I want to ask pointlessly, it’s clearly me that they’re talking about.
I step tentatively closer, and watch them both back away. I run my hand experimentally along my cheek, expecting to feel something different, but no. My skin still feels paper-thin and crispy, the way it has done since I’ve been bitten. I touch my eyeball—not even noticing the disgusted look on Tom’s face. I expect it to be dry—my eyes certainly feel dried out—but instead I can feel a liquid oozing from it. I pull my fingers away and see that they are now covered in a black, thick gunk, a bit like tarmac.
I shake it from my hand and move again. I notice that my leg now feels easier to pull behind me and my actions feel less jerky. Has something happened? Was Michael’s story just about long enough for his “improvement” to take effect? Or am I just becoming accustomed to my new body?
I want to see myself; I need to get to a reflective surface. I need to find out what the hell is going on with me. I soon spot a dirty mirror and continue on in that direction.
“She’s been out for days,” I hear Michael say. “Maybe even weeks, I lost track of time somewhere along the way—I was just so involved in what I was doing, determined to get it right. I didn’t want any more errors. I even managed to keep her knocked out whilst we waited for you to arrive. I didn’t want you to miss out on this special moment. After all, you’re a massive part of it!”
“I—” Tom clearly has no idea what to say.
“I do apologise for using your friends. I can see now that that’s hurt you, but it was necessary. Surely you understand why now.” A silence rings out for a few moments. All that can be heard is my odd-sounding footsteps. “After I’ve confirmed that this has really worked—although I can’t see anything going wrong now—I will ensure you and I are cured, or improved, however you want to look at it. We did this, so we obviously get priority in treatment. I couldn’t have reached this amazing conclusion without you. I do want to get it to the point that you don’t have to be infected first, but I’m starting to think that time is really running out. If things are as bad as you say they are…”
