Threnody (Book 1) (10 page)

Chapter 12

From the Journal Of Marcus Johnson, PhD

June 16, 2014

I’ve been trying to figure out what is different about Lazarus that allowed him to survive the LNV infection when no other test subject has done so.  Indeed, I’ve been obsessed with that question and I know I have been staying in the lab for far too many hours in pursuit of the answer.  I have left further work on the development of LNV itself to Sanji, while I have focused entirely on Lazarus.  Sanji knows as well as I that it is important to know what happened with Lazarus so LNV can be modified to prevent such events from occurring in the future.  Still, I can hear him talking to the techs about me. 

I know he is in with Mr. Handler and I know he has been reporting to him directly about me.  After Lazarus I mentioned my concerns about the project and what we were doing to Sanji.  I heard him talking and laughing with one of the techs shortly after; I know it was about me and what I said.  Later that day I saw him at his workstation secretly discussing my comments with Mr. Handler.  I’m not going to discuss anything further with Sanji.

As for Lazarus, I have made some interesting observations and discoveries.  He often exhibits repetitive and almost compulsive behaviors.  He does not seem to feel pain as he will occasionally engage in behaviors to the point of injury and will continue as if he does not even notice.  I surmise that this loss of nociception has to do with the antagonistic effect of TTXrP and/or the anti-Nav antibodies on Nav1.7 channels.  Nav1.7 channels are found in nociceptive neurons located in the dorsal root ganglion as well as the trigeminal ganglion and are more sensitive to TTXrP than Nav channels found in the Purkinje fibers of cardiac muscle.  I have also noted that while his overall activity levels seems very much depressed, Lazarus exhibits increased wakefulness to the point of not having any discernable sleep though EEG monitoring seems to be of questionable accuracy.  Lazarus also seems to have a ravenous, insatiable appetite though strangely his food preferences have shifted dramatically to meat.  Further testing determined that he expresses significantly increased levels of the hormone orexin-A.  The exact reason for this is unknown but I surmised that viral transfection within the CNS led to a disruption in orexin gene control leading to overexpression.  The hormone ghrelin was also increased but this is likely secondary to decreased sleep time.  This could contribute to increased appetite as well.

For now, Marcus out…

August 15, 2014

I am so close. I think I am finally about to unlock the true secret of Lazarus! I know there is much I could learn from necropsy but I cannot bring myself to kill this magnificent creature!  Of course there are things I can only learn from the direct evaluation of Lazarus’ tissue, particularly the CNS tissue, but I have no right to end this creature’s life to satisfy my curiosity!  After all, God saw fit to spare him alone from the ravages of LNV.  I did subject Lazarus to a PET scan for the purpose of functional brain imaging.  There are multiple areas of suspected damage as evidenced by a diminished signal in the dorsal and ventral prefrontal cortex, the angular gyrus, orbitofrontal cortex, ventromedial hypothalamus, and the amygdala.  Interestingly there is increased PET uptake in the lateral hypothalamus.  I suspect these are accurate findings as they correlate well with the behavioral changes I have observed.

Sanji continues the work on the project and is becoming increasingly hostile toward Lazarus and myself.  Yesterday he said, ‘Kill that damn monkey or I’ll do it myself!  You need to get back to work on the project!’  I know that was Mr. Handler talking through Sanji and I’ll be damned if I let either of them do anything to Lazarus.  It is the fault of this God-forsaken project that Lazarus even exists.  I’m not sure either of them truly knows what we are doing here!  This is the last straw!  Lazarus has told me it is time.  Hell is empty and all the devils are here!

Marcus out.

Chapter 13

October 3, 2015

The plan, as John described it, involved him bursting out of the front door of the maintenance hangar, securing the door behind him, and making his way across the airport grounds to hangar four.  Reams was to monitor the horde at the fence from the roof, ensuring they were adequately distracted and displaced before heading out the back door and making his way to his truck beyond the far side of the public lot.

Once outside John was instantly assaulted by the cool, gentle breeze of the night air.  After the stuffy, stale air of the recent cramped confines, it was a welcomed reprieve.  Unfortunately, it was cut mercilessly short as the mephitic odor of the infected things assailed his senses, nearly sending him into paroxysms of regurgitation.  Fighting back the urge to heave his guts out, he pressed on like the silent shadow of a ninja.  He was reassured that he did not see any of the things on his side of the fence as he closed to within fifty yards of the front door to hangar four.  He could see the thick oily stain surrounding Hasker’s body, which lay prostrate on the tarmac about thirty yards away, highlighted by one of the solar runway spotlights like a macabre work of art displayed for the whole world to see.

Nearing his goal, John emerged from the shadows that had kept him invisible thus far.  No longer wishing to keep his presence a secret, his demeanor transformed into that of a wild berserker as he began chaotically thrashing his extremities, banging the crowbar and hammer into any solid object in his path, and yelling taunting derogations at the hungry onlookers.  Everything seemed to be going according to the plan, as the entire mass seemed to take notice of the morsel now parading before them.  As if tethered to one another, they immediately shifted as a single unit toward the commotion outside hangar four.

Reams looked on, surprised to see his new friend’s crazy plan was actually working.  With a slight shake of his head, he readied his gear and moved to the rear door in preparation for his departure.

John stared wide-eyed with the full attention of the group fixed on him, as the terrible, assiduous moaning and growling started with a feral intensity for which John found himself utterly unprepared. 
Perhaps that was a little overboard?
  Another disconcerting sound surfaced—that of the now impossibly flimsy fence clanging and groaning under the barrage of upright corpses.  He quickened his pace, wondering just how much weight the small, insignificant chain link fence could withstand.

Upon reaching the door he was not surprised to find it locked.  Delving deep into his pocket, he produced the key ring Reams had given him. Fueled by adrenaline, his hands shook and buffeted as he worked feverishly to slide the key into the lock.  For an instant he worried Reams had given him the wrong one.  Losing his grip on the key, it tumbled to the ground as John cursed his apparent lack of dexterity.  He scooped up the key, and this time, drove it straight into the lock. The effort was rewarded with a satisfying ‘clunk.’  At the very same time he felt something wet hit his arm.
When did it start raining?

Turning to glance up at the night sky, John was horrified to find himself nearly eye to eye with one of the infected.  The morbific abomination made almost no sound as it approached John from his blind side.  The ‘rain’ John felt on his arm was actually a dark, bloody fluid that slung from the thing’s decimated right arm as it reached for him.  The mangled extremity flopped freely in all directions at the elbow that now functioned more like a ball and socket joint rather than the intended hinge joint.  All of its fingers, save the thumb, were missing from its right hand.  The remaining skin flapped wildly with each movement, slinging more foul fluid like dirty water off a mop head after cleaning the floors of a high school boy’s bathroom.  The lack of groaning John realized was due to the thing’s lack of a larynx.  Indeed, its entire head was supported only by its spinal column, giving the thing a striking resemblance to a stick figure drawing, albeit one drawn by a deeply troubled, sociopathic juvenile delinquent. Hollow, gurgling sounds like water flowing at the bottom of a deep well squelched out as the air and fluid within its lungs compressed with each step. Its scalp, almost completely avulsed, was flipped back where it hung from the rear of its skull like a grotesque flesh-mullet.  There was a constant, rhythmic, clicking sound as its mandible worked furiously – incessantly gnashing at the air in hope of finding purchase on the meal now standing less than two feet before him. 

Thoughts of the crippling uncertainty and his near demise at the hands of Mr. Hasker flashed briefly through John’s mind.  Suddenly, he sidestepped and sprang into action.  Pivoting, John swung the crowbar with such fury it nearly decapitated the thing as it struck its neck, slamming its jaw shut and pinning the creature against the wall.  Before the momentum of the first blow had even dissipated, John was already bringing the claw hammer around from the opposite side for the quietus.  With the curved end of the crowbar around the right side of the thing’s neck, the force of the hammer’s claw from the left side tore through the soft disk space of the spine as well as the spinal cord, decapitating the thing with the efficiency of a razor-sharp guillotine.  Heaving under the strain of his sudden exertion, John gazed down upon the now acephalous corpse at his feet and was surprised at the paucity of emotion he felt. John marveled at the remarkable adaptability of the human brain that could allow a man whose life had been dedicated to healing, to viciously and callously behead one of his former brothers with little more than a second thought.

Meanwhile on the opposite side of the tarmac, Reams quietly and steadily crept toward the now depopulated segment of fence.  Pausing briefly behind a fuel tank, he watched with surprise as he saw the deftness and ferocity with which John dispatched the thing outside of hangar four.  He was relieved to see John open the hangar door and slip inside after setting off a couple road flares just outside the building.

Reams resumed his trek toward the truck, thankfully going unnoticed by the horde now focused entirely on hangar four.  As he neared the fence, panic washed over him as he realized they had not considered how he was going to clear the seven-foot tall chain link fence without making noise and drawing unwanted attention.  Though John had done an excellent job of capturing the attention of every infected in the vicinity with the noise and commotion he intentionally offered for that sole purpose, it was now woefully quiet on the grounds of the airport with John securely inside hangar four.

With growing alarm, he scanned the area desperately searching for a solution to his current plight.  As if on cue, the previously still night air kicked up momentarily, and a moderate gale swept across the airport parking lot.  Mercifully, the wind came from Reams’ left side and flowed toward the agitated mass of rot.  Thankful that he was not assailed by their repugnant stench, Reams heard a faint creaking sound coming from his left, a short distance away.  To his surprise, there was a previously unnoticed, partly ajar gate in the fence about fifty feet from his position. Smiling and thanking the heavens for his good fortune, Reams noticed that more than a few of the revs now amassed at the far end of the fence had turned toward him, noses held aloft as if sniffing the air. 
Great, it’s either I smell them or they smell me.

Advancing through the heaven-sent gate, Reams quickly sought refuge behind a black Honda Accord parked just inside the fence.  With the frenzied feeling of a cornered animal, Reams again scanned his surroundings for a way out of the increasingly desperate situation.  As he peered up and through the windows of the parked vehicle, he noticed several stickers plastered on the glass, partly obscuring his view.  He rolled his eyes and suppressed a half-smirk as he read them.  The first of the three stickers on the window depicted an obviously undead version of an otherwise cute little kitty with the words, ‘Hello Zombie,’ above it, while the second featured a cartoon zombie holding an ear of corn as it moaned, ‘Graaiiins!’  As if it wasn’t apparent, the words, ‘Vegan Zombies Love Grains,’ were written just below the picture. The last sticker was from a record label Reams had never heard of called, ‘Gravewax Records.’  A coffin and a cartoon skeleton appeared next to the name.

“You guys might just have the perfect soundtrack to this shit if anyone was still alive to buy it,” Reams mumbled softly as if talking to the sticker itself.

He still had to cross nearly the entire public lot, approximately two hundred yards.  The layout of the airport, combined with the overall laziness that drove people to park as close to their intended destination as possible, meant that nearly all of the cars currently in the lot where parked on the far side of the lot, offering Reams very little cover between his current position and his destination.  Though the collective groan of the infected was still a low drone in the distance, he knew their attention was shifting, and he knew the sound would steadily intensify as they lumbered toward the prospect of warm flesh—his flesh.  With a sense of despair and hopelessness encroaching like darkness on the heels of the setting sun, Reams realized that in their haste the two had not made any contingency plans in the event that either of them was unable to complete their objectives.  The big man thought of John stuck inside hangar four with no supplies waiting for him to drive up in the truck, unaware that he was being mercilessly devoured by throngs of revs just outside.

With this thought, an intense resolve materialized deep within his soul.  He
would
be there with the truck.  He
would not
let John down.  He
would not
let John end up like Cedric.  Just as Reams was about to stand and begin his perilous dash toward the truck, he heard an intense, rhythmic banging sound coming from the direction of hangar four.

“I could almost kiss that man,” Reams muttered to himself as he watched the mass of revs turn back to explore this new and closer disturbance. 

The rev nearest to Reams’ position was less than twenty feet away, and he noticed with sadness that the carious thing was Max – the night guard at the small airport.  Though tattered, he still wore his blue uniform and as well as his hat.  Reams could tell his left leg had suffered massive trauma and could see that his ability to ambulate was seriously impaired as a result.  The brief sadness Reams felt when he thought of the Max he had known was eclipsed when he noticed the beautiful, black beavertail grip nestled securely in a holster on the right side of his service belt.  An idea came to Reams, and almost before it completely materialized in his mind, he was up and taking action.

As the big man eased out from behind the woefully small vehicle, he slipped out of the thick canvas work coat he procured from the mechanic shop.  With the grace of a ballet dancer executing a well-rehearsed pirouette, Reams sidled up behind the thing that had been Max, threw the thick coat over its dappled, bald head, and snapped its neck with such speed and brutality that the thing never had time to realize that food was so close.  Lowering the now exanimate corpse to the ground, Reams popped the thumb break on the holster and slid the pistol out.  He grabbed two spare magazines that looked to be full and stuffed them into his pocket as well.  After checking the load on the magazine seated in the pistol, he tucked the weapon into his waistband.  “Thanks, brother. I’m sorry this happened to you.  You were a good man, Max, but I don’t think this plague gives a shit who you are,” Reams said in a low respectful tone.

* * *

Slipping quietly into the dark hangar, John quickly secured the door behind him.  He felt like he had entered a mausoleum as the reverberations of sound within the hollow, expansive room bounced and echoed all around him, making the even the smallest noise seem immense and ear-splitting.  As he turned his knee popped, sounding more like a gunshot than any noise of human origin.  He realized with some relief that such amplification would not discriminate and felt some degree of comfort after not hearing any sounds of reply from deeper within the foreboding building. 

Now all he had to do was wait; Reams would signal his approach with a single short blast of his horn when he neared the back of the building.  Switching on his flashlight, John proceeded to inspect his surroundings, and to chart his course to the back of the building.  As he scanned the room he noticed the monotonous droning that was the steady chorus of the infected seemed to be diminishing.  Listening more intently he realized with alarm that the sound of the infected mass outside wasn’t fading per se, but rather changing direction.  Knowing that persistence was a defining characteristic of the revs, his thoughts immediately shifted to Reams when he wondered what could have captured their attention in his absence.

Before realizing what he was doing, John ran to the heavy rollup door on the hangar and commenced banging on it unforgivingly with the crowbar.  Inside the closed space the noise was deafening, effectively drowning out all other sound, and leaving John’s ears with the muted ringing one would experience for days after enduring a loud rock concert.  The action had the desired effect, however, as the entire horde turned en bloc back toward the sound coming from within hangar four.  After a minute or so, John paused to listen.  As his hearing slowly returned, he was relieved to hear that the sound of the infected outside was again escalating.  With a satisfied smile plastered across his face, he turned and started across the dark, cavernous room toward the back of the building.

* * *

Rounding the small car, Reams gathered up the supplies he liberated from the hangar and moved across the expanse of the parking lot toward his truck.  The weight of the Springfield XD40 and two full spare magazines felt reassuring to the big man as he trudged along under his significant burden.  Reams felt a sense of relief as he slipped around the wooden arm of the employee parking lot gate and approached the bed of his truck.  After securely placing the water jug and duffel bag in the bed of his truck, he moved around to the driver’s side door.  The jingling of his keys sounded like the crashing cymbals of a drum kit against the utter silence engulfing the night air.