Elizabeth did her rounds, every morning. Like a guard in a fortress. Checking that the enemy did not make it through. Verifying that nothing was out of line, nothing was strange, nothing was even slightly askew. Checking that Frank, the Frankenstein monster, had not entered their secured perimeter.
Something was wrong.
Arguably, a lot was wrong. A deserted building, 84 000 zombies, a Girl in The Gas Station type intruder. Also, everyone around her was lying.
But—something else.
The universe, askew. As if—reality did not quite fit with the narrative.
-XX-
Two years ago.
"You heard of Vantablack," Elizabeth told Mary, in the lab. A normal lab. Level three, blue range accessible. Normal technicians, normal work, no zombie-related experiments.
Mary nodded, this was one of the rare times when she listened to Elizabeth, actually listened. The subject fascinated them both, and here they were today, staring at blackberries, innocent, honest-looking blackberries. Except, they seemed very dark, when you looked at them. Very, very dark. A hole in reality kind of black.
Remember Vantablack? The "world's darkest substance". Absorbing up to 99.965% of the visible spectrum. Human-made, a scientific feat, doesn't exist in nature.
Didn't exist in nature. Till now.
"Definitely an Event-related mutation." Mary mused, thoughtful. "Vantablackberries."
"This is a joke I should have made. I feel very cheated right now."
"I must say," Mary whispered, her attentions all on the berries. She lifted her hand, almost patted them, before retreating. "I must say, it sounded very much like an Elizabeth joke."
"Please do not touch the experimental subjects!" This was Savangh, one of the scientists on the Vantablack thing. Only two of them, "why have some berries mutated to a pretty peculiar type of black" was not a top priority when everyone in the world was still desperately scrambling for a vaccine. Elizabeth and Mary were the only ones riveted. Elizabeth had found the bays, she was the one who brought them back, she was the one who lobbied, insisted, and lobbied again to have them tested. Mary helped, thank you Mary, and now there was a team, as small and unmotivated as it was.
"Do not touch the experimental subjects" was a joke, of course. "Experimental subjects" meant zombies, not fruits. And Mary and Elizabeth could touch all they want. A lot of vantablackberries on the slopes, ripe for the taking.
"This is a game changer," Mary continued. "How can they not see it? Nature is evolving. Our environment reacted to the Event and decided to… Who knows the hell what, and wouldn't it be interesting to understand what's coming? You know, the Swedish have a whole department on it, on environmental consequences. With serious funding."
"You should go to Sweden," Elizabeth answered. "They were hiring like crazy last year. They'd love your profile, too."
"Oh, I will. Just you wait. As soon as my contract is up, Gothenburg, here I come."
Silence. Sill watching the berries.
"I'm sick of this place," Mary said, in a low voice. "Believe me."
What would Elizabeth do when her time was up? Back in town? She didn't know exactly, but it would involve a nice café down there on the pier, beer, mussels, and live music.
"Maybe with brown sugar," Elizabeth said. Still looking at the berries. "You know, a coulis. Goes well with chocolate."
"Don't you dare. I swear to God, if you cook a cake with those, if you bring it in the cafeteria, I will— Don't you dare even try."
Elizabeth wouldn't. She would not eat a mutated fruit, but she had been tempted, at the time, when she discovered them. The first bush. Little patches of absolute black. Tiny blackholes, up there on the bush.
Devouring all light.
-XX-
Now.
A fortress, two guards. She and Edwards, they were thorough. Checking their perimeters every morning and every night. Edwards gallantly walked Elizabeth to her office after, then went to the LT zone to do his job. Nobody had answered the PTO request, maybe it was still processed somewhere, so they were still expected to work, still expected to complete their tasks, and if this did not deserve the Kafkian adjective, please tell me what did.
(Fifty to a hundred millions a month. Nothing Kafkaian at all. Very rational, actually.)
She and Edwards slept together again twice. Because—touch. Scrapes of humanity. Anything, to counter the gnawing void. After, they stayed the night, obviously. You don't go scampering at dawn in empty, endless corridors in such a context.
But then, they just…stopped.
-XX-
"Grandmother, what big ears you have!"
"All the better to hear with, my child."
"Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!"
"All the better to eat you up with."
And, saying these words, the wicked wolf fell upon Little Red Riding Hood, and ate her all up.
-XX-
Elizabeth was in Building One, almost halfway through her usual perimeter when her phone rang.
It rang. Coulson's phone never rang. Normally it beeped, on one of the lowest settings, when she received a text. Now it was ringing. Elizabeth scrambled to get it from her pocket, then paused, pondering.
Tinker, Tailor, Traitor, Liar.
She refused the call. She kept walking. The phone rang again.
Elizabeth hesitated. Then she decided to answer but felt so nervous about it she almost cut the connection by mistake again.
"Hello?"
"Stop walking now."
She froze. "What?" she asked, barely above a whisper.
"Three of them," Coulson stated, "next office to your left. The door is closed, but if you walk past you'll break the d. The hall after is clogged too."
"Clogged?"
"Six creatures."
Elizabeth was so still she hardly breathed. What— How— Cameras?
"Wait— Is there a tracker on this phone?"
"Of course. Do not move." Keyboard strikes. Then, "I only activated it yesterday," Coulson said. "The tracker."
"What should— Do I turn back?"
"In a minute. Two more in a parallel corridor, I want to see which way they go. Can you wait?"
"I most definitely can," Elizabeth politely replied. She was not terrified, her body was not turning to jelly, not at all.
Visualize. Three zombies waiting in the office, ten meters ahead on her left, so, this door there. And in the hall straight ahead, still far away, six creatures. "Clogged", what a nice metaphor.
And the two more somewhere on a parallel path. "Where are they now?"
"Still walking."
"How—how is that even possible?" Elizabeth whispered. "So many? When Edward and I checked Building One—"
When was that, four days ago? Building One had been fine then. Hell, this level, it was fine yesterday. Yesterday morning on her usual round.
"Someone is opening the doors," Coulson said.
Silence.
"Elizabeth?" he asked, after a while.
"Still here."
"The two zombies are going your way," he said, "they are going to cross the hall just behind you, near the first catwalk, the one behind you." The catwalk she just left, connecting the two buildings, the one Elizabeth had taken to come here from Building Two.
She slowly turned around. "Too far to sense you," Coulson continued. "If they go on straight ahead, you're good. If they turn in your direction…"
If they did, she would be trapped between the two newcomers, the zombies in the office on the left, and the clogged hall.
"…we'll consider the question then. But they're slow, so if it happens, do not panic. Do not run. Especially toward the others. Are we clear?"
"Clear."
Elizabeth checked her collar. Her gloves. She opened her safety kit. Grabbed her Z-Knife. She waited.
There was no sound, not even shuffling in the contaminated office. She imagined the three zombies inside the room, perfectly still. Sleeping beauties, waiting for their prince to wake them. The two others, on their daily promenade.
"ETA, three minutes. They're not in a hurry."
"No reason for them to be." A pause. "Is Frank opening the doors?"
"Frank?"
"Our possibly mutated intruder, this is how I call him."
"The Frankenstein Monster?"
"Can you spot him? On the cams?"
"No, and believe me, I am looking. But only a third of the cameras are working. Interestingly enough, none in the labs down there; I cannot access ground or underground levels at all."
New silence.
"By 'interestingly enough'" Elizabeth commented, "you mean you suspect foul play, and not only…incompetent maintenance and budgeting."
"Situation summed perfectly, Ms. Moore, as always. Ok, our friends have stopped; let's see if it takes. Do not move yet, ok? I know it doesn't feel that way, but you're safe for now."
Waiting.
"So, you are a liar," Elizabeth stated, after a while.
"Yep."
Her throat, tight, again. "Are you hiding more?"
Coulson gave a wry, short laugh. "Plenty."
"I will rephrase. Is there information you are hiding that—could hurt me—my safety here? Things I should know for my own security, but that you cannot tell me?"
When he answered, Coulson's voice was cold as fuck.
"Yes."
Silence fell. Then rose back up and did a little dance. Counted to a thousand, did yoga routines, learned to tango, brushed up on its Sanskrit.
"Ok, we're on again," Coulson announced. "They're walking. Do not move. One minute," he announced after a while. "Thirty seconds. There they are."
There they were indeed, Elizabeth could see them at the end of the corridor she was in, two creatures, a man and a woman, or so they were before. Walking so slowly, so close, they looked almost affectionate. Or like…work colleagues, going for a smoke, bitching about the printer.
They did not turn her way. They just kept going. Now, waiting till they were far enough, and she could retrace her steps, go back to Building Two.
New silence.
Ok, so. Why did they text—she and Coulson? I mean, if they could have talked on the phone all the while? Surveillance algorithms? Maybe texts were more discreet. Maybe a phone call was more obvious somehow. Maybe this phone call, right now, had triggered a thousand alarms.
Was he supposed to call her? Did this mean this phone, their phone, was…burned now?
"Ok, you can go back," Coulson announced. Elizabeth did, hurrying to the hall, then through the previous catwalk and to the relative safety of Building Two.
"Ms. Moore, I am going to end this call. We cannot text—we cannot communicate again." His voice. Professional. Indifferent. "Please consider that the entirety of the Center is possibly contaminated and proceed accordingly. We—"
Voices. On Coulson's side.
The communication was cut off.
Elizabeth unstuck the large metal security doors there to seal the catwalk in case of emergency. They had never been used, they were heavy, but she pushed and pulled with all her might, and they finally closed on Building One with a clank full of disagreeable finality.
-XX-
As soon as the wolf had finished this tasty bite, he climbed back into bed, fell asleep, and began to snore very loudly.
A hunter was passing by. "This wolf has eaten the grandmother, and the girl," thought the hunter. "I will shoot him." And the hunter killed the wolf."
Then he took a pair of scissors and cut open the belly of the beast. Little Red Riding Hood jumped out and cried: "Oh, I was so frightened! It was so dark inside the wolf's body!"
There were two different versions of the tale. One with a hunter and a happy ending, and another one where—
The other you already know.
-XX-
She told Edwards. They changed the routes; they doubled down on the barricading.
But.
-XX-
Elizabeth prepared herself a lair.
She opened her work laptop, Admin access, she found Karima's old apartment, one level above her, a little to the east. Changed the door entrance code to the date she had met Nawal in the camps. Nobody on the whole planet knew this, not even Nawal, considering she was, you know, dead.
The cameras were too. Dead, I mean, most of them, at least in this zone. Elizabeth checked, found two still beeping red in a stairwell, killed them. Yes, 'kill' was the right word. More…purposeful.
Then, and only then, did she enter the apartment.
Such a strange impression, as if Karima had never left. Some of her clothes were missing, and half of the toiletries, but the décor had been left untouched, bright colored throws and cushions on the sofa, photos on the wall, the flowers Elizabeth had given her for her birthday, dried and displayed in the bedroom. For a moment Elizabeth was transported a year earlier, she and Karima and Mary, Duy and Churchill, Coulson, pizza night, bad wine, stupid jokes.
Ghosts.
Mary was working in Sweden, by the way. Went directly from the boat to the airport, turned out she had secured her exit strategy well in advance. Sent her resumé, got the job months ago, not telling anyone.
(Good for her.)
Anyway. Elizabeth began to stock the place discreetly, a little more every day. Food. Medicine, warm clothes, covers. Brand new security kits. Even water. The normal water was potable, but it felt safer.
-XX-
The final day of the evac.
Elizabeth hadn't known she was going to be left behind. She had been assigned to the last transport out; later, she would understand that she had not been apprised of the decision because the decision had not been made yet. To the last moment, they were still hesitating. It ended up being between her and some guy, she heard later when Duy and Mary texted her; they could still text, during Elizabeth's first week alone in the Center, before all communication was cut.
Elizabeth was finally picked because she and Edwards—a man and a woman—it looked better.
God, those first days all alone in the building. When coms were still open. Where Elizabeth still watched the news, when she was still doing long-distance therapy sessions. When she thought it was all going to be bearable after all.
But. Back to evac day. Absolute, utter chaos. A rumor had just broken, the second transport had been attacked while the boat was still in harbor. Yes, a boat. VIPs had been transported by chopper to a tiny airport and boarded a comfortable plane before being whisked to the capital with complimentary peanuts and champagne. But plebeians were crammed into busses, they got out the Lost Area through the eastern road, escorted by heavily armed cars. Then, to the coast, a boat, sailing north.
Not a bad idea. Boats were one of the safest modes of transportation. In deep water zombies ended up disoriented, floating aimlessly in the currents before being devoured by the local fauna or slowly disintegrating. One day, a TV anchor said, the ocean would eat them all.
But the ocean had not eaten them yet. Boat Two had made a nonscheduled stop and something happened. Eighteen casualties. Elizabeth did not know the details, she just heard Coulson yelling at people, he was still in the Center, one of the last to leave, he had not been put in charge of boat security and was not happy about it.
So, yes, chaos. The news had scared everyone. Schedules had changed. People, crammed in the halls, close to panic. Elizabeth, reading the new timetable, trying to find out what bus she was on, where her luggage should go.
Then she was convoked into one of the last HR offices, and they told her.
Two years. Luggage was not an issue after all.
When she stepped out of HR, Elizabeth wandered the corridors. People were blurry. Two years. Alone in here, with—some guy. What was she supposed to do? Saying goodbye? But her friends already left. She quickly texted the news to Duy, who was already safe and sound in town. Karima had never answered any of Elizabeth's attempts at communication.
Duy replied in a flurry of messages, most of them starting with "WTF," but Elizabeth did not have the strength to reply. Coulson, she should say her adieux to Coulson, her feet took her to the main hall of Building One, where the last hundreds of employees were being ushered into the remaining vehicles. Except there was some confusion about bus numbers, people were talking and protesting, the noise was unbearable, suddenly Coulson was in front of her.
"Elizabeth. I heard. I didn't know."
She hadn't even considered that he did. She nodded. Coulson was reaching into his pocket. Someone called him then, he turned to answer, so this is over, Elizabeth thought, work relationships, swept away by the merest wind. She was still in a haze, Coulson turned back to her, he took her hands in his, there was something in them, a phone, he put it discreetly in her right palm.
Then he gave her a significant look. "Stay safe," he whispered.
Then, "I left—"
Interrupted again.
Elizabeth slid the phone into her security bag, someone shouted, "There are THREE buses number 5!" and Coulson had to walk away for good.
-XX-
That day, Edwards did not answer her IMs. Even when they were working they kept in constant contact, for obvious security reasons. This time, he did not answer; Elizabeth panicked, she made the whole trek down there, Z-Knife ready, just to find him in the LT zone, his normal office, very focused on God knows what.
"Sorry, I forgot," he said, when she asked him.
He forgot. I mean. Sure.
Ok.
-XX-
"As long as I live, I will never leave the path and run off into the woods by myself if mother tells me not to," Little Red Riding Hood told the hunter.
"This is wise," the hunter replied. "Be wise, Little Red Riding Hood. Your life will be so much happier."
He looked around, at the dark woods, at the Center's empty corridors. "Something is wrong. Do you know?"
-XX-
That night.
That night Elizabeth stayed awake, eyes open. Then she got up, put on her warmer clothes, solid shoes.
She chose a brand-new security kit. She went out on her tiny balcony, she climbed up across the small railing to access the other balcony on her left, she found the security ladder and make her way up onto the terrace roof on level four.
The moon was high in the sky; the broken plastic chairs were still waiting on the fissured concrete. Another security ladder, up one level, another terrace. Elizabeth found the door that led inside the building. She had the code, she had all the codes.
The roof door closed silently beside her and here she was, Level Five, empty.
"Please consider that the entirety of the Center is possibly contaminated and proceed accordingly."
No zombies. No company. It made sense. If zombies came from outside, the upper levels should be relatively safe still.
To the other side of the building. It took a while, but the trek was uneventful. A stairwell. Another one.
Leven Seven. VIP floor.
Dark, plush carpet everywhere, potted plants in the hall, they had all died, no automated irrigation system here. She should have taken them at the beginning, when everyone left, she should have scoured the Center and grabbed all the abandoned plants, she should have dragged them down into her hall and taken care of them, her own private jungle.
No codes anywhere, although the whole floor was red range. All the files, everything important must have been methodically erased, packed or shredded in preparation of the evac. No computers left, a few monitors, too old to have any value. The whole place was dead, no electricity, except for the feeble glow of the security lights.
There were three Heads of Security. Coulson's office was on the left. Corner office—his past in the military, the special forces aura. Entering the room was bizarre. She had only been there once, to be scolded and sent to a thousand new certifications after the clown incident. She could still see him there, though.
She began her search. Every closet, every drawer. Nothing, peanuts. Ironically, real peanuts. A half-empty-year-old bag in a drawer. What would happen to the bag when she and Edwards would leave at last? Would the Witch destroy the Center in some way, or would the peanuts be left here to rot as years went by, while plants and zombies slowly invaded the building?
"Stay safe," Coulson whispered. "I left—"
Nothing. Well, not nothing. Bullets. But they were useless, without—
"Firearms are prohibited inside the Center."
"Are we inside the Center?"
"Will the gun magically disappear when we head back?"
"It will go under a potted plant near the door."
Elizabeth got out of the room. Potted plant, right on the left. She looked under it, and here it was, the gun.