A/N: As we reach the final stretch, things ramp up to 11. Thank you, as always, to my tireless beta (LeMasquerade) whose life is also about to ramp up to 11. This might mean the updates are a little slower, but they wouldn't be half as good without her yelling at me to fix my mistakes. Or gently encouraging me. Depends how stubborn I'm being.
Chapter 20
3 days since last feed
It's been a long while since you last saw Sue.
You've exhausted all possible methods of entertainment and settle for listlessly lying on your bed, the inactivity making your joints ache. There's nowhere to go, nothing to see.
"I'm bored," you whine into your radio, hanging your head off the edge. Santana tried to play checkers with you through the walkie, but it failed pretty miserably.
"I'm sorry, B," she says sympathetically. You hear the rustle of her clothing as she sits down. "I know it sucks. Are you sure you can't get out?"
"Not unless you want me to jump out of a four-story window."
"Let's not do that."
"Does she have, like, an electric cord? She could rope her way down."
"Wheels, that is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard in my life."
You shiver, glancing out your open window. A cold breeze seeps in from outside and all you long to do is wind yourself back under your sheets for warmth.
Sheets.
"What if I said I could jump out of a two-story window instead?"
It takes almost no time to rip all of the sheets and covers from your bed, sending them scattering over the floor. Laying them out against each other shows they're nowhere near long enough, but you run your fingers over the sharp metal edge under your bed. An impromptu knife.
"What are you talking about?"
"Artie was right. I can make a rope out of my sheets."
"Genius," you hear him mutter in the background.
"Britt," says Tina, "are you sure? Won't you get in trouble?"
"Maybe, but it's their own fault for locking me in here."
You brace the sheets against the metal strip and run it carefully, severing the cotton in two. Your floor is a mess of fabric strips as you finish ripping up your bedding, your fingers cut and bleeding at the tips. Now comes the slow task of tying them all together. As you work, you can hear your friends arguing softly in the background, accompanied by Santana's steady breathing.
"If you get caught..."
"I know, San. But I'm tired of being a prisoner."
Eventually they're all knotted into one long piece, as tight as you can possibly make them. You tie one end to the leg of your bed, pulling until your shoulders threaten to pop and you convince yourself it's secure.
"Okay, I'm going. See you soon." The walkie is placed in the dresser and you throw the rope out the window. It makes it a bit more than two-stories before running out.
Doable, you nod to yourself, pushing the window open all the way. A blast of icy air hits you and you scramble to put a coat on before you forget, hastily tugging your boots over your too-big socks and lacing them tight. The grounds are bathed in in the washed-out glow of the floodlights, but there are pockets of shadow where they don't reach. You're banking on the fact that they can't see you from the wall.
"The shit I get myself into," you mutter as you climb out of the window, facing backwards and gripping the rope so tight your knuckles ache. The first few steps are manageable, but the more gravity weighs you down the harder it is to keep your feet on the wall. Eventually you just end up wrapping your feet in the bedding, using the sharp edge of your boots for grip. The wind blows you against the wall as you inch down, your fingers quickly frozen.
The endless tunnel of inching and swearing and shivering finally ends. You reach the last foot of the rope with over a story drop between you and the ground. You gulp, willing your frozen fingers to let go.
I've been through worse than this.
The fall is surprisingly short for such a long distance. You land in a snowbank with a muted whump and wearily pick yourself up off the ground, retreating further into your parka. The hood is flipped up over your head and you shiver as you begin the trek to Santana's house.
It goes strangely without incident. The few guards you pass don't even look at you and within no time at all you're climbing up the steps to their little shack. About five people simultaneously stand up as you shoulder in.
"Don't look so scared," you sniff, rubbing at your nose, "it's just me."
Tina laughs and hugs you so hard you're lifted up a little, recoiling once your parka touches her skin.
"Shit, you're freezing. Come on, let's warm you up."
They have a little gas heater and you gratefully huddle in front of it, shedding your parka and warming your icy fingers. Santana settles in next to you, and you don't even have to look at her to see the worry in her face.
"I'm fine," you smile, kissing her jaw. "I landed in a snow bank."
"Are you sure no one saw you?"
"Not really, but I didn't get shot. That counts, right?"
You kiss the warning frown right off her lips. Her jaw moves for her mouth to open but someone clears their throat; you both break away with a sigh and turn.
Santana smirks. "Come to join in, Fabgay?"
Quinn raises her brow. "No thanks, Satan. I'll let Britt be the blonde in your pants."
"Score," you mutter.
"Instead, there's someone I want you to meet. This is Abby."
She moves to the side a little to reveal a woman, not older than twenty five, nervously cradling a bundle of rags in her hands. You hear the dual heartbeats almost immediately, and hers speeds up once she notices the mangled scar on your forearm.
"It's okay," Tina says, "she's here to help us."
"You... you're the one they keep talking about. The survivor."
"We're all survivors, I guess," you smile, but it trails oddly at the edges once you catch her scent. You breathe in deeply through your nose and a flood of memories come back—a wife, a husband, a newborn. Shared blood running through the veins of the little one. You catch a glimmer at her wrist.
"I like your bracelet," you tell her, and she finally smiles.
"My husband found it for me. It has my Zodiac sign on it." Her expression flickers. "I haven't seen him in a while. He went out with a group to go scavenge, but he should have come back days ago."
Something in your stomach roils. Santana catches the color draining from your face and coaxes you to stand, gripping tight to your hand. "She does this sometimes, it's okay," you catch her saying, but Quinn isn't fooled. She tugs you to the back of the room, near the crates of supplies.
"What is it?"
"I know her husband."
Santana frowns, stroking your knuckles with her thumb. "That's good, right?"
Your fingers shake. "San, I... they made me..."
You press a hand to your stomach and understanding suddenly dawns on her. Her eyes go unbearably sad, as she strokes the nape of your neck, playing with the new length of your hair.
"It's okay, Britt. It isn't your fault."
She beckons Quinn over and exchanges a few muttered words. Your leader looks over and gives a sympathetic grimace, wiping long bangs out of her eyes.
"I'll tell her," Quinn says, "but only after we've talked. She shouldn't be distracted now."
The three of you retreat back to the heater, fielding the odd glances thrown your way.
"Now that we're all here," Quinn starts, and you're consistently amazed with how little she gives away: her voice doesn't even waver, "we should figure out a plan. It's pretty much a fact that something weird is going on."
"Putting it mildly," Kurt mutters.
"...And," she shoots him a glare, "we should all be ready for the worst. Have we noticed anything weird lately?"
"The family three to the right of us have disappeared," Rachel chimes in, "about a day ago. They might have moved, but I did some detective work while looking for supplies and couldn't find them anywhere."
"The guards let in a few people last night, but they never showed up here," Mike adds.
"I haven't seen Sue in a few days."
They all glance at you.
"She said she'd be back, but she never was. My guards say she's okay, but last time I saw her, she was arguing with Boroyan. He's getting angry."
Santana laces her fingers with yours, and you squeeze them gratefully.
"I'm sure that old bitch is fine," Puck grunts. "She wouldn't die even if God told her to."
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Quinn tries to close the matter, but he has none of it.
"Why do we even care? The more we poke around, the more likely it is that they'll grab one of us. We're finally safe. Let's not fuck it up again because Lopez has a boner for one of their freak-shows."
Santana growls and springs to her feet—her hand re-emerges from her pocket with a switch-blade, the deadly blade springing eagerly from the handle. You recognize that look in her eyes; cruel and unforgiving, the glare before the kill. "Like you can fuckin' talk, you piece of shit. She's our best chance for survival. It's a miracle we made it here after what you fuckin' did."
"But we did," Puck snarls, "without her, and without Mr. Schue. We don't need anyone. Especially not some zombie-bitch who likes to chew on people's guts in her spare time."
"Take it back."
He pulls out a knife of his own, and the whole space simmers with a deadly tension. "Make me."
Santana lunges and manages to catch him shallowly across the chest, drawing a thin, weeping line of blood. Puck backhands her and she goes staggering across the room, narrowly avoiding the knife aimed for her face. They trade blows and field off any attempt at help; Mike gets Puck's elbow in his nose and there's a crunch followed by a tidal wave of blood. Tina rushes to his aid and the distraction lets him bring the knife down to Santana's neck—she raises her forearm, catching it with the hard outside ridge instead. It bites down to the bone.
She recoils, gripping her spewing arm to her chest, and Puck grins as he slowly advances on her. "You shoulda given up, Lopez. I didn't want it to be like this."
"Go to hell, Puck," she spits, charging forward. He misses and her knife lands in his thigh. He howls, ripping it out, but as he goes to turn you snatch the shotgun lying against the wall and step squarely between them.
"Hurt her again and I'll blow your face off," you hiss, finger resting on the trigger. The entire space is covered in blood and it's making you restless, aching to give him what he deserves. His glare is nothing but hatred, and you hope that your eyes return the sentiment.
"Get out of the way."
"Guess what, Puck?" you snap. "You fucked up. You tried to kill me, but it didn't work." You pull your shirt up with the butt of the gun to expose the mass of knotted scar tissue in your abdomen. "See that? That was you. Touch her again, and I'll make sure you get put in the basement to rot."
The shotgun pumps, and he takes a step back. "Leave. Get out of my sight."
He swears as he pulls on his parka and boots, storming out the door with his leg still bleeding. Finn scrambles after him despite Rachel's objections, and soon, the only sound is Mike's muttered groan as Tina dabs at his swollen nose.
As soon as the door slams you drop the shotgun and rush to Santana's side where she's trying to staunch the bleeding with a rag.
"Are you okay?" you ask as you press on it, getting blood all over your fingers. You fight the overwhelming urge to lick it off.
In response she claims your mouth in a searing kiss, pulling back only when you see stars. "That was hot as fuck," she mutters against your lips, hers splitting into a lecherous grin. You shove her playfully, face reddening.
"Shut up, I totally just saved your life."
"Yeah, I guess you did."
Tina comes over with a needle in hand, rolling her eyes a little. "Are you two lovebirds done whispering at each other? I need to patch that up."
"Way to ruin the moment, Chang One." Still, she follows her to the couch, readily bearing her arm. Tina grimaces, pulling gently at the skin.
"Well, it's gonna hurt like a bitch, but I don't think there's any permanent damage."
"Sew me up, doc."
As Tina gets to work on the stitches, Quinn surveys the blood splattered all over the floors.
"That'll take forever to get out."
"Not our biggest problem, Fabray."
"I suppose not. We should—"
"I want to know what she knows about Jack," Abby interrupts, drilling holes into your temple. You shift awkwardly on the threadbare couch, picking at the blood that's already beginning to dry under your nails.
(Last time this happened, Sue was cleaning his out from under yours.)
"I don't know anything," you mutter, but she steps into your space. Her skin is hot and you flinch back, putting a hand on Santana's knee who begins to protectively shift towards you.
"You're lying."
"Abby, come on. Leave her alone."
"You want me to work with you? You tell me what you know. I know something happened in those basements."
You chew on your bottom lip, worrying the denim of Santana's jeans. People are trying to talk her down, to persuade her otherwise, but your guilt turns your tongue into a treacherous beast.
"He's dead," you mumble, glancing up at the far wall. You can't look at her face. "I saw them do it. They made me watch."
She recoils, clutching her child closer to herself. He starts to cry.
"How..."
"Gas," you half-lie. "They're testing something."
"W-was it quick?"
No.
"Yes."
Abby nods faintly, guided to the couch by Rachel. She rocks her baby boy back and forth as she stares into the distance.
"He said we shouldn't have come here. That something was wrong. I didn't listen."
She turns, eyes glistening. "I'll help however I can. I'll make it up to him."
Tina finishes up Santana's stitches in silence, and she wraps her free arm around your back to comfort you. The pressure hurts and you wince, worming away a little. She spreads her hand on your lower back and frowns. "You should let Tina look at that."
"I just slept wrong."
"Four days in a row?"
With a grudging sigh you pull up the back of your shirt, turning slightly so Tina can see. Instantly, there's two quick, startled inhales.
"What? What is it?"
Tina's warm hands touch at your spine. "Were you... did you fall on something?"
"Not recently."
Santana runs her thumb across the backs of your hips. "There are little holes. Puncture marks?"
(Your dreams return, of coldness on your back and pain and murmured voices. Maybe they aren't dreams at all.)
They're about to investigate further when the door slams open—snow gusts into the space and three different people simultaneously go for their weapons. A uniformed guard stumbles in, white dusting the shoulder guards of his vest. You catch a glimpse of his name tag.
"Motta!" you get up just as he flips the visor on his helmet. "What are you doing here?"
"I don't know how the hell you managed to get down here, but you need to come back. The General is coming to see you."
You gulp, already sliding your boots back on. "Does he know I'm gone?"
"Not yet. Master Sergeant is stalling him."
"She's okay?"
"She's fine. She won't be if we don't get you back into your room."
Santana throws your parka over your shoulders, stealing a quick kiss. "We'll look around and see what we can find, okay? Be careful."
"Aren't I always?"
She gives you a glare and you smile, kissing her softer this time. "I promise."
Motta ushers you out the door with barely a backwards glance and you struggle to keep up with his pace. It's silent for a few moments, but he eventually looks at you out of the corner of his eye. "That your girlfriend?"
"You could say that."
He nods. "Good choice."
"Right?"
Eventually, you make it directly under your window. The rope is still too high to reach, and he gnaws on his lip for a moment before squaring his shoulders. "I'll go up and lower it down and pull you over the side. You know Master Sergeant is going to kill you for this, right?"
"She's not as scary as she thinks she is."
"I beg to differ," he mutters, sprinting towards the doors to (hopefully) outrun your pig-nosed demons. You hop from foot to foot, burying yourself further into your parka. Your back aches. Coming down to talk to the others leaves more questions than answers, some of which you aren't sure you want resolved.
What have they been taking from you while you sleep?
A whistle catches your attention. Motta leans out of your window, the rope firmly in both hands. From here you can jump and reach it; you pray that he's stronger than he looks as you give it a running jump, winding your hands the best you can in the cotton. He grunts, bracing one leg against the windowsill, and begins to tug.
You slowly ascend the wall. Each shudder of the rope has you bracing yourself for a fall, but Motta keeps pulling you up, hand over hand. You distantly hear him swearing with each tug. You know how he feels.
You pass the third story window. A young child stares outside and shrieks when you come face to face with him, giving him a small wave as you pass. His parents rush to his side and you lift your feet so they don't see you, and through the glass you hear them scolding him for coming up with monsters.
Eventually Motta grabs your hood and hauls you inside, sending the both of you sprawling to the floor. You groan as he shuts the window with a thump, kicking your boots off and rolling out of your parka, shoving them both into the corner of the room. He lies on the ground, parka unzipped, his forehead covered in sweat.
"Thanks," you pant, sitting up.
"Never," he wheezes, "do that again."
Heavy boots appear at the end of the hall. He scrambles to shove off his boots and hide his parka under your bed, but the rope is still sitting on the floor when the General barges in. Sue's face is tensed like she's expecting the worst, but instantly smoothes out when both of you stumble to your feet.
"What's going on?" the General asks, his beady eyes narrowed. Motta flounders, but you simply shrug.
"I was practicing how to make a noose."
"I thought she was going to do something stupid, Mr. G-General, sir."
His thick brows furrow. "Are you?"
"Only if you make me."
"Put her on suicide watch," he snaps, storming out of the room. You and Motta collapse back onto the bed right around the time Sue starts yelling.
Days pass and you are bored out of your mind.
Ever since the close shave with the General, Sue has been very firm about you leaving: you don't. The only glimpse of the outside world you see now is out of your window, barred from the outside, and the times when the door swings open to bring you your food. They've started increasing your meal size. Ever so slowly, you've begun to fill out.
It's been a few days since you've seen Sue. She forgot your blood glass and ever since then hunger has begun to gnaw on the edges of your thoughts again, whispering things into your ears. The bed is scratchy and your legs are restless, pacing endlessly in this tiny white room. Santana picks up on the edge in your voice but can do little to help; without her presence she's just a noise over airwaves, and her words can only get you so far.
Now, you sit in the dark. The light is starting to be too much for you and you've retreated to your closet, sealing yourself inside this voluntary casket. Living for so long without the frenzy has made you weak to its influence, easily pushed to agitation. It tastes like defeat.
"Are you sure you haven't seen her?" you mutter into your radio, resting your head against your knee. There's some murmuring in the background, the shuffle of moving feet.
"Sorry, Britt," Tina says, and you hear something tearing, "Sue hasn't been around. Did you ask your guards?"
"They said they haven't heard from her either."
You pull yourself more upright and wince, grunting under your breath.
"Back still hurt?"
"Yeah."
"Does she have like, meningiteses?" asks someone further into the house. "That makes your spine hurt, right?"
"It's meningitis, Finn. And that makes your neck hurt, not your back." Rachel. You roll your eyes a little.
"I see why you're the doctor."
"Someone has to take care of these idiots," Tina says wryly, another clink coming from her end, followed by a muttered curse.
"What are you doing?"
"Quinn said we should prepare for an emergency, so I'm making a first aid kit."
"An emergency? Like what?"
"Dunno. She's been talking with the neighbors next door a lot. I think she's getting paranoid."
"Being paranoid means staying alive."
"Maybe... I guess we'll see."
You can tell she's doubtful, but you hold your tongue. Your back twinges and you brace yourself against the back wall to shift again, but you pitch sideways a little as your support gives out. The radio clatters to the ground and you go to pick it up only for your hand to pass through a beam of light on the way. You pause, pushing your right hand against the wall. It hisses, opening the slightest bit.
"Tina?" you say cautiously, rocking up on your knees. The radio shakes a little in your grip. "I found a door in my closet."
"A... what? How?"
"I pushed on it and it moved." You peer through the crack, but all you see is grey concrete and bright, blinding lights. It's graveyard silent. "It looks like a hallway."
There's a pause.
"Britt, don't."
A burning curiosity fills you. "I'll just look around for a few minutes."
"They'll kill you if they catch you."
"No they won't. They need me alive."
(Besides, death isn't a great deterrent for you in the first place.)
"Aren't you not allowed out?"
"Sue said I wasn't. Nobody else did."
You clamber out of your closet and open your bedside drawer. "I promise I won't take long, Tina. I'll talk to you when I get back."
The drawer shuts before you even wait for her response and then you're creeping ever so carefully into your closet, shutting the first set of doors behind you. The new door is whisper-quiet and you touch the hinges with a frown. Greasy. This is recent.
The hallway is cold. A draft seeps in from the vent that runs along the ceiling, blasting sterile air throughout the area. Your footsteps echo as you make your way further and further from your room. It's distant, but you hear the bustle of life on the other side of these walls, the main building blissfully unaware of the shadows that slink behind them.
Your path splits off into three different directions. Each looks the same as the last, and any attempt at a mental map makes you hopelessly lost. In the end, you end up going straight.
You make four of these decisions until you grudgingly accept that you have no idea where you are.
The noise of outside has dimmed. It's like you're trapped in a vacuum with nothing but yourself for sound, an echoing emptiness. You've already descended two flights of stairs and the earth around you has begun to take on a damper scent despite the attempt to sterilize it. Upon yet another right turn you notice that the concrete at the very top of the wall where it meets the ceiling has crumbled away, leaving a chunk of light to seep in from the exterior. It stretches far up above your head.
Your hands run along the smooth, hold-less walls. You're starting to regret not bringing the radio along for support. Still, you need to figure out where you are if you have any chance of getting back.
Slowly, you press yourself against the wall. You'd seen Quinn do this a while ago, still in New York, inching slowly up the wall to tinker with the vents as per Artie's request. She was a lot more in shape than you, but you refuse to let your body be a hindrance anymore.
The first few feet are slow. The hallways are narrow but tall, and your thighs begin to cramp long before the ceiling. Each slide of your foot a little higher causes sweat to drip down your brow. Eventually, you get high enough that you can reach with your hands, letting go and hanging freely from a pipe instead of bracing yourself. Your legs tremble, and you push, one against each wall, to stabilize yourself.
All you can see at first is a sliver of ceiling. The panels are the same white as the entire building, but older, chipped at the edges. Pushing yourself up with your legs lets you see the tops of doorways and the signs above them. Most are blank. There's one to the absolute left of your vision that says Observation in blocky black letters. It's the same room they dragged you through to eat that man.
You try to see more of the hallway by pushing yourself further up but your foot slips and the pipe you're holding onto can't support all of your weight; it groans and snaps, sending you tumbling to the floor. When you land it's on your back and it pushes all the air from your lungs; the pipe lands squarely on your face and your ears ring from the impact. For a moment you lie on the sprawled concrete and watch the ceiling spin above your head.
Eventually, you roll onto your knees, resting your head against your forearms. The break doesn't last long—footsteps float down from the next hallway, the distant thrum of voices. Turns out others do use these after all.
You stagger to your feet. The sound is coming from the left, back where you came from, and straight ahead is another dead end. Where you're standing now there's an outline of a door, a rectangular line in the concrete, but pushing on it yields no movement. The only way out is right, down a flight of stairs, further into the depths of the building.
You keep the pipe for reassurance as you fly down the steps three at a time, gritting your teeth against the familiar throb in your back. No matter how light you are on your feet you still make noise, and the others are right on top of you now—you breathe in three different smells of three different people, but you recognize all of them. Scientists.
Darting through the new hallways (are these dimmer, or is it just your imagination?), it's sealed door after sealed door. Their footsteps clang as they make their way down the stairs and your heart thuds anxiously in your throat. Half of your brain says to stand and fight, pipe clutched firmly in your grip, but you keep running anyway. Eventually, you turn down a dead-end with nowhere left to go. You can hear them chattering in the main hallway, and any movement will make them notice you. You curse, pushing your shoulder against the door-imprint of this new hallway.
It moves.
Hastily, you dig your heels in and push with all of your might, opening it enough to worm through. It's a tight squeeze, but you're blood and bones and not much else; with a final heave, you shove it closed just as the scientists pass through the hall you used to be trapped in. You sink down the wall of the little closet you find yourself in, sweat rolling down your temples. It takes a while for your heartbeat to return to normal.
Eventually, you recover enough to crack open the door of what looks like a large metal locker. It only opens a few inches before it hits a tray of glass bottles and you freeze as everything clinks. There's no one that comes to shoot you and you relax, about to push it open further when the door at the far end of the room opens.
You clamber inside and shut the locker door hastily, peering out of the slats cut into the metal. Three white-coats file in, followed by two guards. They're dragging someone inside, covered in blood and filth, her head hanging low. An older woman, maybe in her 50's. You hold your breath as they come to a stop.
"Put her on the table," says one white-coat. Boroyan. Your gut churns in distaste.
She's been held captive a while. She's gaunt, even for a survivor, and her body is covered in open sores and wounds. One of her eyes has swelled shut, and her feet are fat sausages compared to the rest of her body. Trauma.
There's a general bustle as the guards haul her onto the slab and secure her arms and legs with thick restraints, the white-coats wheeling little tables up to her side and fiddling around with bottles filled with odd-smelling liquids. One searches for glassware mere feet from your hiding place and you press yourself as far away as possible. She's fairly young, maybe thirty-five. Her face is marred with a frown, and her fingers are agitated as she searches for what she needs. She turns away before you can get a closer look.
Boroyan presses a button on a little recorder sitting beside him.
"This is Doctor Boroyan performing Test Injection number four with Doctors Syu and Whitefield. The time is two forty-seven pm, on February twelfth, two thousand thirteen."
You recognize the woman doctor now. She was the one outside the door with Sue, and the one who helped your father end the world. Maybe she'll have answers.
"What makes you think this one will work? It's all been the same thing."
"We have the missing ingredient now, Syu. Have faith."
She scoffs. "That's exactly what you said before we unleashed hell on earth."
"That wasn't us, that was Waters deciding to be an idiot. It would have been contained if it was up to us, but now it's our responsibility to fix it. Do I have to write you up for insubordination?"
Dr. Syu scowls but pulls on purple latex gloves anyway, the snap on her wrist ominous. You realize too late that the mask she's wearing has a face-shield.
"Has she been exposed?"
"Two hours ago."
"Reanimation time?"
"About another hour."
"Good."
Boroyan pulls out a needle and you recognize the smell instantly—the dead-stink that lingers in one of your three little vials, the thing at the core of all the sick. The thing that makes you sick.
"This, ladies and gentlemen, is our best chance for success that we've ever had. All our tests are very, very promising." His eyes glimmer. "It could be that we've found the cure."
He's lying. There's no difference in this one, nothing that differentiates it from the blood of the woman whose fever will soon take her. Another failure, just like the last. They just don't know it yet. But your nose... it doesn't lie. He places the needle down on the table as something at his waist beeps.
"While we wait for her to reanimate, I need to go... attend to something. We all return here at four o'clock sharp." He whisks out of the door with nary a glance backwards, beckoning to the two guards to follow. The only people that remain are Whitefield and Syu. She sighs.
"Do you really think this will work?"
Whitefield is even younger than her, bright-eyed and excited. The difference is startling.
"It's our best chance yet! We have samples that we couldn't dream of six months ago."
"The small tests might be promising, but a human body is a very complex mechanism. It can't be as simple as that."
"I know you're tired, but we're almost there. Soon, we won't have to be afraid anymore."
Syu gives him a wry smile, but it's rough at the edges. He doesn't notice.
The woman on the table whimpers, straining against her restraints. Her heart thuds so loudly it reverberates in your head like a drum. Hunger bites at your gums.
"I'll go get coffee," he says softly, glancing to the twisting woman. "I'll be back soon. Do you want some?"
"Sure. Black."
He hurries off and Syu stands indecisively in the middle of the room for a moment, chewing at her lower lip.
"I'm sorry," she says eventually, looking at the woman on the table. "I should have stopped him while I still could." Her hand smoothes flyaway hairs back from her scalp as she reluctantly retreats into the adjoining room, shutting the door behind her with a click. You stand motionless for a few moments before gingerly pushing open the door of your hiding spot—the glass jingles again, but there's no one there to hear it. You slowly widen the opening, wincing every time a beaker hits something else. Eventually you manage to squeeze your way out of the locker and into the space of the laboratory.
Glass containers litter the shelves. The entire room stinks of formaldehyde and stale fear, the drains on the floors not enough to wash away the faint bloodstains that puddle around the steel tables. It reminds you of the morgue, just... worse. Filled with even more sinister intentions.
You run your fingers along the countertop to the far left of the room, next to the door that Syu went through. Notes are scattered across it in varying different handwriting, some crisp and fresh and others stained and crumpled. Upon a whim you pick up a sheet.
January 25, 2013
This will be the second attempt at a cure since coming into contact with Brittany S. Pierce. Subject is 27 year old white male, approximately six foot. Excellent health condition. He should be able to sustain the hardship of injection better than most.
We have managed to acquire a little bit of blood by sleuthing in David's office, but it isn't enough. Her blood is remarkable, surely, her organs even more so, but we need to get to the source for this to work. Her blood marrow is what is producing the lymphocytes that killed off the virus in the first place, that much is certain, but how? Did the cure we injected into her program her body to fight it off? For as little as we've seen, there's been massive disease-inflicted damage throughout her entire body. There must be something else that kept her intact.
We would be much further in this if there weren't setbacks every two steps. David refuses to share his knowledge, guarding it at every step, claiming that Pierce doesn't want to go through any more procedures. While that may be true, her selfishness may cost us the entire human race. She's the only one that can possibly end this.
…
Subject two was a failure. He turned just like the others, though the timeframe was slightly extended. It doesn't matter how long it takes if it's always a death sentence. We need fresh samples. We'll stagnate without it.
You go to pick up another paper but a loud groan makes you pause. The woman on the table shifts weakly, tugging uselessly at her restraints. Death creeps into the room as she waits to pass.
You stop at her side. Her eyes are fever-glazed, hair matted, skin slick. This must have been what you looked like as you died the first time. Her gaze is sightless, but she still looks at you with something uncomfortably close to accusation. Even if you're imagining it, you can see the plea.
Your hands wrap gently around her head as you stand over her. She wheezes, her legs kicking, but there's no going back now. Not for any of you.
"I'm sorry you had to die for me," you whisper, pulling her head up a little. There's a glint to the side and you ghost your hand over the scalpel sitting pretty, begging to be used. The tip pricks your finger, a tiny rivulet of blood sliding down to your wrist. With a sigh, you tilt her head further until you can press the scalpel to the base of her neck. The woman murmurs something that could be a prayer in better days. (You know the voice of the dying. They all sound the same.)
The blade slides cleanly through the hole at the base of her skull with a sharp press, cutting upwards into her head. Her body jerks once before lying still, and the breath leaves her lungs mid-inhale. Her brain quiets. The sickness won't take her, too.
Instead of slinking out into the hallway, you grab your pipe from the counter and cautiously make your way into the next room. The door creaks slightly and you cringe, ready for a fight, but the figure across the room doesn't look up from where she's hunched over a microscope.
"Just put the coffee on the desk," she murmurs, hands fiddling with the knobs on the scope. You swallow before setting your face into a scowl, crossing the room in rapid strides. Syu looks over her shoulder just as you reach her, and there's a flurry of movement as you grasp her by her coat and yank, throwing her against the wall. She stumbles, and within the space of a breath you press the pipe hard against her throat.
"I don't want to hurt you," you hiss, "but if you give me a reason, I will."
Syu presses against your arms but you simply put more weight on the pipe. You hear the wind whistling through her compressed airway.
"B-Brittany, how did you—"
"It doesn't matter. I want to know what you're doing."
Her face flickers, gaze moving momentarily to the right. You see the surgical saw and kick the entire tray out of reach, sending the objects scattering across the floor.
"I know who you are," you tell her, "you don't want this."
"It doesn't matter what I want anymore. It's what needs to be done."
"Is that why you adopted a dog that looks like Fido?"
Her eyes flash. "You read the files."
"I know what you did to me. I'm not mad, not anymore. I just want the truth."
She stares for a few moments before nodding—the pressure on her throat loosens and she takes in a grateful gulp of air.
"What do you want to know?"
"What are you doing in the other room?"
"We've been working towards a cure. Things were stalled before you came, but your blood has put life back into the project." You sense the irony, but it's not amusing to either of you. "We've made strides in days that would've taken us months, if not years."
"It won't work," you say, glancing to the door. "It's wrong. It smells just like them."
She frowns.
"Whatever you did, it... I don't know. Everything has a smell. A sound. I can sense things other people can't. That cure you have, it smells like the zombies. Not medicine. It won't work."
Syu glances at a clock over your shoulder. "The subject's gone quiet. It hasn't been long enough."
"I killed her."
She chews at her bottom lip for a moment before nodding. "Better than letting her suffer."
"Where are you getting all these people?"
"I don't know. The guards just bring them in. We aren't supposed to ask."
"Are they from the refugees?"
She shrugs. "Maybe some of them? I've never been out there, I don't know them. We just do our work and ignore all the things that happen outside, like rats in cages."
Not unlike the people they torment. Their prison is here, on this floor. Their stench travels through the vents.
Syu, though... she smells so good. You lean in closer, your head pressing against the wall. Just one bite and she'd—
No. You jerk back, pressing your face into your arm. She touches your shoulder, but there's no maliciousness in the movement.
"Sue hasn't fed me," you mutter, blinking your eyes open, "I'm hungry. It's hard to think."
"I can tell Boroyan—"
"No," you snap, baring your teeth. She flinches back. "I don't trust him."
"Good, you shouldn't." Syu glances back down at the floor. "I can help you, if you want. It won't be enough to make it all go away, but it should be better."
The rational side of you tries to resist, but the pulse under her neck is a tempting siren. Syu gestures to the scattered tray, and you hesitate only minutely before backing away to pick it up. She doesn't try to move, even after you give her a warning stare.
"Pain doesn't bother me. If you try to hit me with that I'll kill you."
She smiles, taking off her white coat. "I believe you."
"Wait." You catch her arm before she has the chance to make the cut. "I want to know what you're taking from me first."
Syu tenses. "What are you talking about?"
"I know you put things in my back at night. I remember. I taste the thing you put over my mouth. Tell me."
"… they're biopsies," she mumbles, twirling the scalpel she found. "Bone marrow. He takes a very little bit at a time so that you wouldn't notice."
"You left holes in me. It hurts."
"And how many more do you think you'd have if David and I weren't running interference? Boroyan, he… he's done playing games, Brittany. Things are wrong."
Sufficiently silenced, Syu turns away from you. Her hands handle the scalpel with an expertise that only comes from years upon years of patient practice. She extends her right arm, carefully nestling the blade just below the crook, before pressing down and making a fairly deep incision. Blood wells up on the inside of her arm almost instantly before dripping down onto the floor. She barely grimaces.
Syu glances up at you, and her slight nod is all it takes.
Her scalpel clatters to the ground, and the pipe against her neck again is more of a formality as you attach your mouth to the crook of her arm. She raises it so you don't have to stoop so low and only flinches slightly as your teeth tug on the lacerated flesh, coaxing more out of the gash. The hunger is already beginning to retreat, the monster bitter at being denied its chance, and you start to feel normal again.
(Or, as normal as you can.)
Syu gently holds the back of your head as you take your fill. "There's something I should—"
Behind you, the door swings open.
"Hey Doc, I got your—"
Coffee splatters on the ground. You swing your head around, meal interrupted, baring your bloodied teeth. Whitefield glances from you to Syu, still pinned against the wall, before scrambling to run in the other direction. His feet slip on the coffee below.
"Brittany, don't!" But it's too late; you're already sprinting across the space to catch up with him, and with one mighty swing the pipe collides with his skull. He goes down in a crumpled heap just before he reaches the door. You pant, your knuckles white on your weapon.
Syu rushes over, a rag tied around her elbow. She puts her fingers against his neck and checks his breathing, sighing in relief when she finds both.
"He'll be fine," she says eventually, shrugging on her coat, "maybe a bit concussed."
"Sorry," you mutter, but you both know it's insincere. She waves it off.
"He's the enemy to you. It's probably better he doesn't know what's going on." Syu glances at the clock, grimacing. "Boroyan will be back soon. You need to go."
"No."
Her eyebrows raise. "No?"
"You were going to tell me something. It sounded important."
"They'll catch you."
You shrug. "They already know I'm here. It won't matter."
"... fine. There's something I want you to see."
Together, the two of you quietly slip out of the room, leaving the incapacitated scientist on the floor. She makes you press the pipe against her spine.
"Cameras in the halls," she mutters, never letting her eyes leave her path, "they can't know I agreed to this."
You wind your way through the halls, and the further you go, the stranger it smells. Earth and death, blood and filth, and a fifth, chemical scent. You can't place it. Eventually, you come to a stop in front of a large window.
"What is this?" It's blackened glass, and you can barely make out the faintest shapes shifting from behind it. Syu presses a button, and it clears.
Zombies.
Hundreds of them, ambling throughout the small space, wheezing and tripping over themselves. Some are intact, some almost rotting away. One or two are missing their legs and they crawl across the ground, their atrophied organs trailing behind them. It's a mystery how you didn't recognize their scent earlier.
"The failed experiments... we put them in here."
"You've... you've killed this many people?"
Her eyes tell the entire truth, and there is a deep, yawning sadness in your gut.
"The injured first, those that wouldn't be missed. But it wasn't enough. Eventually, we started taking people that weren't hurt. Old, then young. Now it doesn't matter. Easy targets."
There's boots thumping down the hallway. The guards have found you.
"I'm sorry for this, Brittany."
You don't turn in time and she presses something cold to the base of your spine. There's a clicking and all of your muscles seize at the same time—you hit the floor and spasm, breath forced from your lungs, an arcing blue bolt of pain lancing through you. When the clicking stops so does the agony, though a lingering ache remains. You force yourself up onto your knees, only for her to press it against you again.
"Stop fighting it," she hisses, "I don't want to hurt you!"
But once it ends you stubbornly raise yourself again, only for the blue pain to come a third time. Now, you can barely raise yourself onto your elbows, but the thumping gets louder and something comes down on the back of your head, slamming your face into the floor. You go limp, your cheek pressed into the tarnished white tile.
Hands grab your arms and yank you upright, your legs trailing uselessly on the ground behind you. Your blurry vision catches Sue's hair darting down the hallway, two guards at her side. She's shouting obscenities, her hand going to her waist, but the people holding you are faster. Your ears ring as they open fire; the two beside her fall in a spray of blood and she jerks back as her shoulder opens in a plume of red. You try to call for her, but all that comes out of your mouth is a garbled moan.
Boroyan is here, running his intrusive touch against your body. Move her, he says, and you're hauled more upright between two guards. Blood drips down your face and stains the floor a wet crimson. Kill the other two, but keep Sylvester alive.
Syu is pressing something to the back of your head, her eyes wild and frenzied, her hands covered in your blood. She needs help, she tries to tell him, but you recognize his expression, a man with no consequences to speak of—your scrambled mind tells you to get up, to fight, but your body is still misfiring from the boot to your head and the electricity in your veins.
She will, he promises, and the last you see of Sue is a halo of red as they drag you away.
You slowly regain your bearings as they pull you into the bowels of the building. There's screaming here, fear and gore and death lingering in every crevice. You are left in a white room with blue sheets, blue clothes, blue blood—you blink blood out of your eyes as they shift you, restraints strapped as soon as they place you on your front.
Whitefield's there. He looks at you with such a terror that his hands shake against his sides. There's a flurry of motion, Boroyan pulling scrubs on, his eyes gleaming with dark anticipation. You begin to struggle in earnest as you spy a gleaming tray of instruments out of the corner of your eye.
Put her to sleep.
A mask is put over your mouth and the air is wrong—too sweet, too heavy. You cough, fighting the headache it brings. It dredges memories of dreams, the rag held to your mouth to stop you from remembering at all.
It's not working.
Use more.
Your world spins, eyes watering, but it doesn't drag you down into darkness. Every cell in your body fights against the exhaustion and you twist your head away, expelling it from yourself.
She's gotten used to it... any more will kill her.
Then hold her down.
Heavy weight on your back, your legs—they smear something cold on the back of your hips as they cut away your jeans and you can barely shift your head through the smothering weight on your shoulders. Boroyan flits about on the edges of your vision as your mental state finally returns to you.
"S-stop it, let me go!"
The guards grab Syu by the shoulders but she jerks away, lunging forward to hold your wrists still. Her eyes are trying to tell you something but you've gone blind to everything except the terror coursing through you, unlike anything you've ever known. You struggle futilely against the people pinning you to the table. An electrical whirring noise fills the air, and you catch the barest glimpses of something in his hand before his weight is on you, too.
"You don't want to give it to us, Brittany? We'll take it." The noise again. He presses against your lower back.
A drill.
You buck with all your might but it won't throw them off—someone hits you on the back of your head again, but it's not enough to knock you unconscious, or even to stop the cry once he breaks into your bones. There's crunching and cracking and a sloppy, liquid noise, but in all the chaos you can still hear yourself screaming. Your voice joins the ghosts of this place as he suctions out the softest parts of you until only hollows remain.
They wheel you down the corridors, a blood-stained sheet thrown over your lower body. Tears glue your eyelashes together but your stare is sightless, one hand limply drooping half-off the mattress. Words are swirling around you but they float over you in a cloud. You can still hear the mechanical buzz of his drill.
Another group passes you. You don't even pay them any notice as you cross paths; the struggling body between two guards another unfortunate soul condemned to die. It's hard to feel pity. But as they get closer and closer, their scent seeps in through your nose, and you summon the energy to flick your gaze upwards.
Quinn stares back at you, eyes wide and terrified, a rag tied around her mouth and blood pouring from a gash in her forehead. She sees your blank stare, the bloody sheet, the army of guards, but you don't even have enough time to blink before she's gone. Her stubborn footsteps drag as she twists her head to look back at you.
When you're deposited back into your room, your windows have been barred and your closet locked. They don't change your bloody sheet or the restraints around your limbs. Your shaky breath is the only thing in the space.
Eventually, you find it in yourself to move. Even the slightest shift has you crying out in the empty room, your lower back blasting pain from your toes to your shoulders. You feel violated, hollowed out and cast aside, but your trembling fingers manage to open your bedside drawer. The crank is harder to manage, clamped between your teeth, but eventually the blessed bloom of static interrupts your choked, hiccuping breath.
Santana's voice comes through the radio, nervous.
"You were gone a long time, B. Are you okay?"
Your vision blurs as a fresh bout of tears drips down the side of your nose. It hurts to cry so all you can manage is strangled, stilted sobs. You realize you'd clenched your hand, pressing the button of the radio down.
"Britt? Baby, what happened?"
"T-they have Quinn," you choke, taking a gasping breath, "they t-took her."
There's scrambling on the other end and the entire Glee club sounds huddled around the radio. Santana's voice is just as shaky as yours. "How did you—"
"T-they broke my bones a-and took m-my insides, a-and now Quinn's—" A bolt of pain lances through your back and you sob, burying your face into the pillow. With the hunger gone, every pain is as crisp as it should be, and you'd forgotten just how much a nourished body feels. "They'll k-kill her. They'll kill all of them."
There's a stilted silence on the other end, and when Santana speaks, her voice is thick.
"Will they kill you?"
"N-not yet. Th-they still want pieces of me. Sue... they s-shot her. She can't h-help."
"What can we do, Britt?"
"I don't know," you voice cracks, "not anymore."