ISOLATION
Little do we consider the daily treasures we see that are most valued in our hearts. John Keller pondered at this statement for hours while on board the USS Juneau LHD 10. The ship is large enough to carry the few passengers on board as well as their supplies and a local drunkard for a captain. Keller was tasked by the United States Marine Corps to guide the group of biologists and researchers onto the island of Monu. Keller sighs as he picks his nails with his retractable knife while leaning against the edge of the rails. He sees one of the researchers wearing grey khaki's, a dark blue vest, and an obnoxiously bright blue fishing hat.
Keller straightens his stance as he speaks in a demeaning tone,"How long is this ride going to take Nikola Tesla? I didn't pull out of Ukraine just to take a day off from serving my country".
"I'm sorry to be of disservice to you, but my name is Dmitri Kruglov, and we won't be arriving until another hour Gunnery Sergeant Keller," the researcher retorts, his Russian accent as thick as his black beard. Dmitri walks past the officer and mutters under his breath speaking Russian in an angered manner. Tired of staring out at the calm pale-blue waters, Keller decides to check on the captain. Dark clouds can be seen in the horizon with a thundering clap in the distance. It's a good thing I'm going inside, the marine thinks to himself, reaching for the hatch leading to the bridge.
"Aye, what seems to be the problem me lassie?" the captain chuckles as he glugs down a bottle of hard liquor, reeking of every possible alcohol known to man.
"Captain, you need to sober up. You'll end up sending us to the bottom of the ocean if you keep this up," Keller confronted.
"Oh nonsense fair child. I've been sailing longer than Romeo couldn't keep his Italian hands off Juliet," the captain bellows a hardy laugh to his own vile humor, spilling his drink on the black boots of the sergeant. Keller looks at the captain sternly preparing a lecture of his revolting behavior while the storm brews stronger. Lightning is striking the waves that form around the boat. The captains hand knocks the helm during his laughing fit, sending the ship off course. The sudden movement makes Keller lose his balance and falls; empty bottles are crashing on the ground, instruments and books falling off shelves and rolling to one side of the bridge. The storm worsens, waves pushing against the hull from the port side. Keller crawls to the door avoiding the falling objects. The cries of the passengers can be heard outside with a scraping sound of cargo sliding all to one side.
"The ship is capsizing!" a man shouts over the heavy wind and thunder. Keller hangs onto the handle of the hatch, pressing his feet on the wall and swings away, opening the entrance slightly. He swings his leg into the opening and lunges out, the ominous laughter of the captain echoing behind him as the hatch shuts. Keller grabs onto a rail and climbs what is now the top of the ship, the screams of others mixing with the deafening sound of the showering rain and thunder. Lightning strikes at the bow. The ship suffers and severs at the point of impact, splitting the hull in two. Keller struggles to hold on, his grip slipping gradually from the blood on his arms. A massive gush of wind sends Keller and hits his head against a beam. He loses conscious as the dark water sweeps his body away.
The cry of gulls pull Keller's conscious back on the sandy white shores of the island. He cringes with discomfort from the impact on the side of his temple. After managing to stand, he surveys the area, finding rubble and dead bodies washed on the shore. Keller starts to check the bodies for survivors with little success. He hears a cough followed by a shriek of ear-splitting pain. Running to the source, Keller finds Dmitri with large gashes on his leg from shrapnel. Keller pulls Dmitri out of the wreckage that was on top of him, carrying him to the nearest tree and setting him on it. More calls can be heard from others, looking at his left Keller can see the remaining survivors. A small brunette wearing a blouse and jeans paces herself towards Keller and Dmitri, followed by a tall sturdy blonde man and a stout redheaded man.
"Are there any others?" Keller questions the woman while tending to Dmitri's wounds. "There's only us," she replies as she sits down next to the two, "My name is Eliza Fullager, Head of the Research Development". Eliza lowers her bag off her back and searches for some medical supplies to help Dmitri.
"Who are these two?" Keller interrogates, letting Eliza take over as he stands to observe the coast. Eliza nods her head towards the plump man, "That's George Allen. He was the captain's close friend, the other is Lukas Schalk. He is part of my research team". George and Lukas meet with the three at the tree. George is breathing heavily, clutching onto his knees for support. Lukas looks at George in pity, seeing that he was not designed to run, let alone swim all the way from the ship to shore. Eliza runs to the edge of the water to wet a towel, wringing it before coming back and placing it on Dmitri's forehead. His leg is cleaned and removed of the metal shards, bandaged amateurly. Keller orders the other two to gather any supplies from the wreckage and Eliza to take care of Dmitri. He wanders into the island to scout the tropical jungle. It is dense with bushes and trees, brimming with wildlife hidden to the untrained eye. Taking his knife out, he hacks limbs of trees and bushes off, collecting the wood into a bundle. Keller brings the wood back and makes a ring for a campfire in front of Dmitri and Eliza.
"You, the Socialist," Keller says bluntly towards Dmitri, "you got a zazhigalka?" he finishes his sentence with a hard slur on the last syllable. Dmitri spits at the marine's feet, reaching into his jacket and tossing a Zippo lighter with an old USSR insignia on it. Keller catches it and flicks the lighter open, letting the flame reach the branches and spread across them. The flame grows large enough to warm those nearby. Keller hands the lighter back to Dmitri in a handshake, giving him an approving look alongside it.
"Oi! We found some some handy equipment!" George shouts, his read bushy beard filled with crumbs of saltine crackers. Lukas sighs as he carries majority of the items in a sack, following the joyful Irishman to the fire. They all gather around it as the night crawls into the sky, the stars beaming gently. Lukas and George pass two bags around the fire holding rations, each person taking only what they need. The crackling of the fire fills the empty atmosphere as they eat slowly, recollecting their thoughts on the recent events on the Juneau. Dmitri can see Coconut Crabs on top of trees nestled between coconuts, their blue and red shells glowing from the flickering flames.
"If they weren't being threatened, I would most certainly be delighted to try one," George fantasizes. The group glance at him with a long pause before bursting with laughter.
"From now on we need to work together if we want to get off this island," Keller says to the group. Dmitri looks at him and scoffs, "You're one to talk Captain America". The two glare at each other before Eliza stands up and clears her throat.
"If we are going to escape, we'll need to head to Malolo Island in order to get to the mainland" she looks at the two then at Lukas and George.
"I will search for fenders that may have washed onto the beach," says Lukas. George rolls off the ground and stands alongside. He stretches his arms and yawns loudly.
"Lukas, my dear boy. It's gettin' late. The crickets are singing their ballads. We've already gone through a lot, and it'd be best for all of us to get some rest, eye"? Lukas sighs and nods in agreement, the rest of the group laying next to the fire.
At the break of dawn, Keller and the group are already awake to follow their tasks. They work quickly to forage for scraps and materials to make a raft as well as water. Days pass by as they work together, surviving with what little is available for them. Dmitri is able to walk with a limp, his leg nearly healed. After what seems to be months, they have managed to make three rafts; Lukas and Eliza on one, Dmitri and Keller on the other, and George with his own due to his bulky size. Keller finishes carving five oars with his knife and hands each person an oar.
Each member climbs on to their rafts, balancing themselves so they do not fall into the water. The cool waves help pull them into the ocean as they start to paddle to Malolo Island. Hours pass by before they see the resort island. Smoke rises far from the horizon as they come closer. They manage to land off the coast of the villages. George, Lukas, Eliza, Dmitri, and Keller start to walk into the resort and take one of the reserve speedboats docked for the crew at the opposite side of civilian population. Dmitri takes the wheel and drives them to Fiji.
Feeling relieved of no longer being stranded on an isolated island, the group relaxes on the boat as they head towards Fiji. During their joyful laughter, Dmitri's smile fades as he looks at their destination. The smoke that they saw earlier came from Fiji and now blankets the sky. Gunfire and screams can be heard in the distance. "What the hell is going on?" Kelller leans on the dashboard of the boat, examining the disaster in front of them.
"I don't think it is wise for us to travel there my friend..." Dmitri says with an expressionless face as he slows the boat down.
"We have to find out what's happening, continue heading to our destination," Keller commands. Dmitri looks into the eyes of the crazy marine before engaging the throttle again. George, Eliza, and Lukas all view the destruction that lies ahead of them, neither one wanting to speak. As Dmitri pulls into the docks, they are met with multiple rifles aimed at them. Men in black kevlar armor are shouting at the members.
"This area is under quarantine! Turn around and return to where you came from!" one of the men orders.
"This is Gunnery Sergeant John Keller from the United States Mari-"before Keller can finish, he is interjected by another guard.
"Your status to your country does not mean anything to us. Leave now or prepare to be executed!" the guard barks. George sees a newspaper floating in the sky while Keller attempts to persuade them entrance. The paper lands on his knee and he sees stretched across the headline NEW PANDEMIC CAUSING THE DEAD TO REANIMATE. He quickly scans through the article before urging Keller to head back. Keller gives up the meaningless argument to allow them in and has Dmitri turn around. George shows them the paper frantically as they head back.
"During the time we were gone something must've happened... It says here 'some new kind of parasite that infects its host. It injects the host with Dimethylmercury at high doses causing a quick death. The parasite then manipulates the nerves of the deceased host to manipulate the body, essentially taking over as the new brain. Once the infected are taken over, they develop qualities of an olympic athlete, but appear to have slow mental development...'" George pauses collecting his breath as they stare at him.
"Dimethylmercury... but that is a man-made poison.. The only way it can produce such a compound is if the parasite was made in a lab," Lukas responds, his face puzzled. Dmitri begins to slow down in to the shores of Malolo Island when gunfire starts to fly by them. He makes a sharp turn away from the island, the side of the hull met with some grazes. Keller, Eliza, and George duck protecting their head. The gunshots deafen their ears. Dmitri pushes the throttle at its highest, trying to avoid the fire. Eliza feels a sudden splash of warm liquid across her left side, looking up to see Lukas falling overboard. She shrieks as the water turns red, his body too far to recover. Dmitri manages to escape the bullet storm, landing them back at Monu Island.
Keller grabs the shoulders of the sobbing Eliza, shaking her into reality. "There was nothing we could do. Lukas was a great scientist and he will not be forgotten". She looks up, pulling herself away as she follows Dmitri and George unboarding themselves. Keller looks at the island. All that work, and we still manage to get marooned here. Keller sighs reluctantly, then studies that the site does not look familiar to where they camped for so long.
"Dmitri, this isn't the same side of the island we were stranded on, is it?" he queries. Dmitri turns around to look at the marine, picking up a large thick branch off the ground to use as a walking stick. "No my friend. We were on the west side of the island, this is the east. Why do you ask such strange question?" Dmitri asks.
"Look," Keller points up to the side of the large mountain. Within the thick forest lies what appears to be a concrete fortress. The plant life has overgrown on the facility, with visible cracks defining the side. Keller decides to investigate the structure and they follow along. Unworldly growls and snarls echoes in the distance as they draw nearer. Once they pass the thick foliage they meet a rusted wired fence, with a horde of infected men on the other side.
"Vo imya Materi Rossii..." Dmitri utters under his breath, fear slowly growing in the group. Keller takes his knife out, handing it to Eliza. He tells her to do not hold back against these things. George takes a piece of scrap metal from his bag that he took with them, tearing a portion of his brown sleeve off and wrapping it to fasten a handle. Dmitri swings his walking stick to his shoulder, holding it as a bat. Keller reaches into his cargo pockets, placing brass knuckles on each hand. Keller and Dmitri form a plan to get inside the facility, telling the other two to clear as many as they can while they make a break for the door. Once the plan is settled they climb over the fence. The horde grumbles unaware of them at first. The group slowly walk around to the side of the horde, before making a strike.
Keller's crushing fists breaks the jaws of four Infected in one single motion, landing on his knee as he uppercuts another. Eliza is darting through the crowd, slashing into the throats of the decaying puppets. Dmitri and George charge into the horde together, tackling many and stomping over the bodies. Dmitri holds the stick in front of him as if he were a batter bunting, using it to brace himself as he runs through them. Eliza, Dmitri, and George make it to the entrance and it starts to close automatically. They try to hold the door open for Keller as he smashes the Infected to the sides of the fence and ground.
"Don't worry about me! Just find out what is going on!" Keller shouts just before he is swarmed. The door shuts completely and an echoing scream leaves the remaining survivors broken. George slouches on the side of a wall, the building is dimly lit.
"Well... We had a good run..." George whispers with despair. Dmitri drops his bloodied walking stick to the ground and stares at George.
"So are you just going to give up like that? After all the hell we've been through, you'd rather sit on your bum and sulk? Think about your best friend Lukas, the captain, and even that American bastard Keller... Would you let their deaths be in vain, because you chose to give up? Where is your honor? Your Irish blood to fight? The world is in chaos as we speak and this facility might be the cause of it". Dmitri cocks his shoulders back, looking at Eliza and George, his arms in an open gesture. "When I was little my grandmother would always say to me,'Little Dmitri, Bez trudá ne výtashchish' i rýbku iz prudá,' which means 'Without effort, you can't even pill a fish out the pond'," Dmitri finishes his speech and reaches into his jacket for his lighter and cigar. Eliza grips the hilt of the knife and looks into Dmitri's eyes.
"We better get moving then, if we want our fish". George stands up and follows the two down the corridor. They scavenge for any documentation that may explain the pandemic. Bloodstains cover patches of the walls and floor, with few flourescent lights swinging on the ceiling flickering. Eliza and Dmitri search through a room that seems to have been a lab at one time. Grime covers the cabinets and tables as they rummage through old files left scattered around the room. Eliza finds a paper on Bioengineering human lifeforms to increase their vitality, though the document is heavily shredded and smudged making the rest illegible. With a lead to go with, the crew continue through the corridor. George was able to find a strange pulse emitting device. Eliza holds on to his backpack as he puts on the battery pack to his back, the barrel of the metallic weapon under his forearm and the handle in his hand. The corridor reaches to a worn down auburn door. Dmitri slowly opens it, prepared for anything to catch him off guard.
Eliza takes point and looks around. They are in a courtroom with sunlight beaming down the missing chunks of the ceiling. Grass covers the ruined tiled flooring and a large willow tree curls around the room. Dmitri starts to creep to the center of the room, noticing a large boulder next to the tree. He treads closer to it as he hears a low rumble coming from it. George sees something swing up from the other side of the tree as Dmitri gets closer. George identifies it as a tail and out of panic aims the pulse cannon towards it.
"It's a trap!" He shouts to Dmitri. He pulls the trigger of the cannon and it starts to collect a deep low bass before letting go and sending a huge shockwave towards the tree. The tree snaps at the impact of the blast, sending large shards embedded to the walls. The large boulder is fast on its feet and dodges the blow taclking Dmitri in the process. Standing offensively in the light, it is visible to see the creature has the shape of a human but three times the scale of an average person, with a long tail twirling in the air. George hurriedly aims and charges the gun at the monster again. It roars and flaunts its misshapen teeth toward George, clawing the ground as it readies to charge at him. Eliza runs to Dmitri to help him up. He's crawling away from the fight coughing blood. His ribs are cracked and every movement causes him pain. George shakes the gun out of frustration and horror as the beast crawls closer, each step crushing the floor. It's scaly red body glimmers in the sunlight as it raises its claw. It slashes George in half right as the cannon sets off another charge, this time a direct hit. The force sends the creature flying into the wall creating a corner of the building to crumble over it. Eliza, traumatized, tries to aid Dmitri once again. He looks up at her and smiles, coughing more blood onto his face.
"Don't let us bastards die in vain young Kiwi," he jokes with a painful laugh, his ribs cracking as he does. She shakes her head trying to reassure him that everything will be okay, ignoring the stereotyping joke. She holds Dmitri's body up, but she already feels his weight lifting away. She sets him down slowly, turning to look at George. His body is sat against the wall, his neck twisted upward and his blood splat across the wall. Eliza quickly looks away in disgust, feeling the need to throw up. She walks towards the rubble where the creature landed, checking to see that it is slain. The sound of rocks tumbling down the rubble echoes and she tightens her grip on Keller's knife. Don't hold back... That's what he told me... Eliza thinks to muster courage. Without any time for a reaction the tail bursts through the debris and whips her ankles, causing her to fall. The beast shatters through the rubble and prepares to lunge at Eliza when she tosses the knife between its shoulder and neck, causing it to fall short.
She tries to stand up, her right ankle shattered. As she walks towards it, the beast starts to speak. "I am sorry to have caused so much suffering... If it weren't for me this world would be in a better state... I was conducting research to enhance and accelerate the brain development of humans. However, the research fell short when a mutated batch escaped the lab and manifested itself rapidly throughout the world. Before it is too late, head to the launch bay and type in the code DEF-1AP. It will send multiple rockets into the atmosphere releasing the cure. Go. Now!" The beast roars as it fights itself to maintain its humanity. Eliza runs past it and darts through the exit.
She finds the launch bay infested with a massive horde, this time she is all alone. Seeing a small gap between a few of the Infected, she darts through it and up the stairway leading to the command center. There are two dead bodies on the control pad when she gets there and she pushes on off to type in the command as instructed. The bay below opens up and reveals what appears to be tens of hundreds of thin but large missiles. Green lights start to flicker as they prepare for launch.
Eliza leans on the control pad feeling pressure slowly fade away. The countdown begins announcing it will launch in five seconds. Four seconds. Three seconds. Two seconds. One second. Eliza is pulled to the ground by the corpse she thought was dead as the missiles leave the bay. It has its hands wrapped around her good leg, forcing her to use her crushed foot to kick it away, each kick cracking her foot more. She frees herself from the Infected and looks for anything to kill it with. The rockets blaring engines cause her to not hear anything. She sees a pistol off to her left and crawls for it, the Infected chasing after her at a slow pace. The missiles leave the open canopy of the facility and spread throughout the sky. Eliza grabs onto the gun and whips around to aim at the skull of the undead. Click...click...click click... There is no ammo left.
The missiles erupt with a green cloud of smoke that tints the sunlight. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, gripping the gun tightly then tossing it with all that is left in her strength at the Infected. Eliza Fullager blacks out.