Chapter -4

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Nathon's eyes squinted closed further. Not another Monday, anything but another Monday. Groaning with misery, he slammed a half-asleep arm over the alarm next to his too-small bed and slowly sat up in a semi-conscious daze. Blinking slowly, he stood up and glared at the closet of an apartment he lived in.

A bed, a dresser, a table, a chair, and a sagging couch. His furniture filled the tiny place, with only a kitchenette, bathroom, and single bedroom. Nathon sighed. It felt like he had fallen asleep only seconds ago. He hadn't woken up feeling well rested for at least a year. He stretched his sore shoulders and arms, and started looking for a clean set of clothes.

Time for work.

Elliot was just pulling on her navy coat and grabbing her cup of coffee on the way out. She stopped at the mirror by the door and quickly glanced to make sure her hair was pulled back smoothly, and she didn't have any crumbs on her grey blouse. She quickly filled up the food dishes by the door and grabbed her bag.

Smiling back at her dogs as she closed the front door, she walked over to her small hybrid and started the commute to the office. She was stuck at a light when her cellphone rang. She grabbed it quickly and didn't even glance at the number before putting on her ear piece and answering.

"What is it?" She listened intently to the urgently spoken message, and replied. "Okay, Timelyson. I'll be there soon." The light turned green, and Elliot slammed the accelerator, racing down the street toward the tall glass building ahead.

Sarah was wearing a similar navy blue jacket and a white blouse, with matching navy pants. She was walking down the street, and talking on the phone.

"Yes Parker, I'll be home in time for dinner, I know you've been planning it for a while ... Oh, can you pick up some cat food on the way home? I think Jimmy's almost out, okay great ... Love you too, bye." She smiled at the thought of her fiance and the poorly cooked dinner he was sure to prepare.

Nodding at he guard by the door, she entered the tall glass building she had been walking toward and went to the back of the lobby and entered the large elevator alone. The doors closed and she pushed the side of a panel in the wall, revealing a glowing red scanner. She pulled her ID out of her pocket, put it in front of the scanner, and the elevator lurched, dropping quickly several floors below. When the doors opened, a large room with several cubicles and offices was beyond them. Sarah quickly walked to the back, and stepped inside one of the three large offices in the back, the one on the right, with her name in black lettering across the door.

She had just dropped her bag on the desk when the phone on the table rang. She grabbed it and answered. "Yes? ... Be right there." She hung up and stepped back outside into the large room, and fast-walked to the back hallway, where another elevator was. She turned the corner in time to see a red-headed figure entering the elevator. "Hold it, please-" The figure turned around, a hand out to stop the door from closing. "Greenwall, ma'am."

Elliot rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Jarmont, how long have we been working together? Almost two years? Quit it with the ma'am crap. Timelyson call you down too?" The elevators doors closed as Sarah got inside the elevator.

"Yes. What's all this about, then?"

"I believe it's something to do with the one we picked up in Vancouver last week."

Sarah's eyes narrowed. She had been against the entire plan of bringing that one back. Zombies were to be killed on the spot, no questions asked. If the CIA wanted to do experiments, they could do it on the bodies after they had been shot several times in the head. The elevator door opened again, and the two stepped out into a dimly lit hallway. A blond woman with a sharp face in a lab coat and and a dark haired woman in a black suit were standing there, waiting for them.

Both Elliot and Sarah stood up straighter at the sight of the dark haired woman.

"Good morning, Chief Fritz." Elliot said. "I didn't know you were coming in today."

"Oh, just thought I'd come in and check up on what your section was doing, Greenwall. Heard about your new, uh, specimen. Seemed like something worth taking a look at."

"Definitely, ma'am. I wasn't completely convinced with the idea of a, um, 'live' one being brought back for study, but Timelyson here insisted they needed it. Apparently they've exhausted all the use they can get out of the remains."

The blond woman nodded. "My research department has found that finding the key to fully understanding the virus is going to require an animated subject. And now that we have one, our experiments can take place. With this animated specimen, we could map the virus. Create a vaccine. Possibly even come up with a cure. A cure for before reanimation, of course. The virus kills the host, then reanimates the body. Curing a reanimated corpse would leave you with just a corpse, as far as we know anyway. Of course, that might be less... violent than the current method." Krissko Timelyson glanced at Sarah as she said this, who glared back venomously.

Sarah, who took great pleasure in destroying the awful things, had always believed that Krissko had developed a sick and twisted sympathy for the terrible creatures she studied. As head of the zombie annihilation division, Sarah didn't have much patience for the research division. Kill first, experiment later. Otherwise it leaves room for error. Zombies, the stupid, ugly creatures they were, had a terrible knack of spreading the virus, no matter how many barricades and walls you kept them hidden behind.

"But," continued Krissko, "This subject could answer all these questions and more. We have him constrained in our safe room. If you'll follow me, it's about time for his blood sample. We've been taking regular samples to diagnose his rate of decay."

They walked to the end of the corridor and Timelyson typed a long string of characters together and the wall slid open seamlessly to reveal a another door. Timelyson waved at a camera in the far corner, and the door opened. This door led to a viewing room, where beyond a small bulletproof glass window a straining figure in grey shorts was tied to a table. Timelyson walked over to the door and gave a retina scan. It clicked open and she held it for the party to walk through.

Sarah approached the table behind everyone else. Everyone stood a good four feet away form the table. Sarah was somewhat shocked at the figure on the table. It was male, with dark blond hair. Skinny, and and his skin was grey and chalky. He looked as if he had been no older than twelve. He was straining against the rope, leather, and iron constraints that wrapped around both arms, his neck, head, chest, waist, knees, and feet. He was snarling and wailing, his eyes unable to focus on the people staring down in contempt and horror at him.

Sarah stared at him for a full minute, feeling strange. She had never seen one tied up like this before. Her hand twitched angrily. She wanted so badly just to reach in her jacket, pull out her gun, and kill it right there, to end her own suffering in looking at it squirm. She took a deep breath, and tried to ignore her impulses. Timelyson was talking.

"He is approximately thirteen years of age at time of death. He was found alone in a garden shack during the second strike. Both parents caught the zombie virus, most likely from him." Timelyson took a needle from her coat. He reanimated approximately 100 hours ago. Decay is slower after the virus has set in. Blood has begun coagulating, and there are no signs yet of rigor mortis. She stepped up to the zombie and pushed the needle into his arm. The zombie either didn't notice, or the reaction was unintelligible from his already manic state. She pulled the plunger back, and a brown substance thickly oozed into the needle. She put the sample back into her pocket.

"We plan on a surgery tonight, which he has a 10 percent chance of surviving. We have already found that the only way to kill a reanimated corpse is to destroy its brain. This surgery's goal is to take a portion of the living brain in order to do some tests. We want to find out how the virus invades the brain."

Elliot nodded in approval. "Sounds good. Looks like you guys are making good use of this subject. Is that all then, Timelyson?"

"I believe so. I need to get this sample to the lab, and I'm sure you all have important things to be getting done."

Aimee Fritz looked up from the zombie for the first time since entering the room. "Uh, Timelyson. I was wondering if I could ask you some more detailed questions later, in your office, perhaps?"

"Of course, chief, just let me turn in this sample." Krissko opened the door and led the group back out to the corridor, leading them away from the nightmarish sounds coming from the creature.

Krissko and Aimee turned down a different hallway as Sarah and Elliot stepped onto the elevator. "You never really get used to the sounds those things can make." Elliot said as soon as the door closed. "It's pretty disconcerting knowing one of those things is writhing down there, right below us."

"That's not the part that bothers me." Sarah replied. "It's just the fact that it's alive, that no one is trying to actively kill it. It should be dead."

"Ha. You really are the perfect person for the job, eh Sarah?" The elevator door opened. "Well, don't let it bother you too much. There won't be any traces of the virus in a 500 mile radius by tonight, if the thing dies during surgery." With that, Elliot walked down the hallway, leaving Sarah to her own violent thoughts of coagulated blood and cold grey skin.