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              “That’s what you needed years ago, a little balls. Could’ve destroyed those samples before they were ever moved. Of course, you failed at that too. Pathetic,” he said and wiped a sleeve across his bloodied mouth. He moved over to the core again and rested a palm on it, bowing his head gravely as he changed his attitude.

              “It’s not the point that the cure didn’t work. It’s not the point that you couldn’t figure out the virus mutation. It’s the point that you were willing to give up in the end,” he explained. “Instead of thinking about jumping from a building, you should have been down in the labs working. Trying. Failing. And picking up yourself all over again. You shouldn’t even think about giving up now, even if the clock strikes zero. You are the only one with enough… intelligence to break this curse. Well, at least, you were.”

              “I, I, just…” the words didn’t come. I was stunned, shocked, loathing myself. He spoke the truth. The virus existed because of me, but could have stopped if I’d acted quicker. It could’ve been contained or even destroyed. But I didn’t do either of those, and because of that everybody was going to suffer, had suffered and died, only a few left to endure this world I’d created.

              “It doesn’t matter much, I guess,” he said. “You already gave up long ago. I really hope it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. I hope it isn’t easy. You deserve every bit of what’s about to happen.”

He frowned once more before fading from sight. It left me ill, reeling backwards. All the while the constant screaming outside reminded me that soon enough I would be one of them.

              A lurch in my chest sent me curling up on my knees, feeling a pain like I was being invisibly stabbed through the lungs. My heart crushed beneath an unseen weight, and my eyes were on fire. I crashed to the floor, no longer able to stand. The turning had begun, and the last image I saw was the door flying open and the creatures scrambling into the room.

Chapter 25: The Turning

              “
Whhhhooooooo issssss it?”
a voice questioned.

A million voices responded.

I woke up. The creatures hovered over me but didn’t attack. My eyes were still on fire, but otherwise I felt ok. Gathering to my feet, I backed up while keeping my attention on the closest one. But it was the voices that cascaded through my head, reverberating off the walls of my mind. I covered my ears but the shrieks didn’t dampen or waiver. Nothing was right.

              With the fiery sensation in my eyes, I wondered if I was on the course of losing my eyesight. But my vision was fine. It was actually better. Objects appeared sharper while the contrast was crisper. It felt like I could see everything. I looked through the glass panel and zoomed in the instruments of the computer consoles in the other room opposite of this one. On the back of the monitor was a sticker with the build date of the equipment. Lettering that should have been too small was clearly visible.

              My attention returned to the three others in the room. They watched in silent focus, clearly unable to understand what had happened to the unturned who was so recently here. I stared at the one closest to me. It was six feet tall even with a curved spine, its skin pure white. It growled in my direction but didn’t move as it continued to search the room.

             
“Whhhheeereeee didddddd itttttt goooo?”
it spoke. The creature didn’t speak. Instead it somehow spoke in my mind. And a thousand voices answered, though I managed to push those aside.

              “Can you hear me?” I asked out loud. Every creature jumped and howled as the sudden noise assaulted their heightened senses. This particular sound went against every instinct they possessed, and this new, freshly-turned human was so very different than the others.

             
“Whaattt doooessss it saaayyy?”
the creature responded. Again a million voices answered, though I tried to focus on the one.

             
“Can you understand me?”
I didn’t voice the question, only thought it. The creature spun on its heels. This time the many voices didn’t come calling. Only a few hundred questioned what the new voice had asked.

              This had to be part of the turning process, to be able to communicate like this. Somehow we were now linked. Though for whatever reason, I hadn’t slipped into the darkness like they had. I caught my reflection off the glass panels. It appeared that the physical transformation hadn’t taken place.

My hands remained the same. No cracked skin was noticeable. No markings on my arms. Somehow, I remained whole. I pulled at the skin on the back of my hand and it snapped back in place. Physically, I seemed to be the same, though my eyes still felt inflamed.

              I left the room feeling utterly different, yet strangely intact. The creatures followed. I couldn’t remember anyone that hadn’t physically as well as mentally turned. In all the trials, tests, experiments, simulations, and anything else we tried, the certainty of the virus taking over and rewriting the genome was one hundred percent if the person wasn’t immune.

              I wasn’t immune, yet I remained the same individual. I couldn’t tell if this was God playing an awful trick or if he was giving me a second chance. Was this the terrible fate the other me spoke of, wishing the ultimate evil upon the one who caused the downfall of society? Or was it just another hiccup in my long line of failures?

              I strode down the hallway, the blue hue continuing to flicker with life. But it was fading. The power source could hopefully run for a few more days. Or at least, a few hours. Keeping the barrier intact until I could figure out what to do was the key. How to deal with this new beginning was my target.

              Coming to the stairs, I climbed up, leaving the creatures to fend for themselves. I needed to talk to Vincent, to unravel what happened, to make sense of this mess. As I climbed I continued to hear the mass of voices. Nothing sounded even remotely human. It reminded me of how animals communicated. Groans, moans, and screams came through more often than spoken words. I was able to decipher their language immediately upon turning. Screams were a language all their own.

              I ran down the corridor to the ladder that would lead up, wondering what I should do. When I reached the top of the ladder I pounded on the trapdoor, hoping Vincent was close by.

              “Just a second, Jackson,” Vincent said, his voice muffled. Soon enough the trapdoor lifted and I escaped back into the room. I spotted a monitor showing the feed from a camera that pointed at the timer downtown. It flashed with zeroes.

Vincent wanted to say something but couldn’t at the moment. Instead I just shuffled past him and took a seat at the computer console. I stared at the blank monitors, dropping the gun and clips on the desk.

              “Do you have a mirror?” I asked.

Vincent was confused but shuffled over to a cabinet.

              “What happened?” Vincent asked as he ran back over with a handheld mirror, placing it nearby. He looked frantic, excited, and beyond terrified.

              “Something…” I held up the mirror and looked at my reflection. I knew it. My irises had mutated just like the turnings. They were now a deep, purplish color. It was like looking at someone else. I wasn’t the same, but I wasn’t completely different either. Altered maybe, but the word changed felt wrong.

The voices started again, frantic as Vincent. I tried to shut out the mass and listen to any coherent, single lines of dialogue. Something was happening. The entire horde was moving towards the barrier.

              “Shit,” I said, tossing the mirror onto the metal console. I got up and exploded through the door, into the dark world. Vincent followed behind, not knowing what to think.

              “Jackson, what’s going on?” he asked. He was examining me like a project, as if trying to understand the outcome of some hypothesis he was testing. He had to construct some sort of idea of what had happened down in the installation when the timer struck zero. But this wasn’t his expected outcome.

              “What does that timer say?” I asked.

I remained fixated on the voices. They gushed like waterfalls, too many crashing over the others. It was beyond my control at this juncture to communicate effectively with any of them.

              “It, umm, it… ran out?” Vincent questioned.

              “It did,” I said without turning around. If I ran now I could make it to the barrier within maybe an hour. I could follow the voices there. They were excited. They understood the barrier was failing. Soon they would be released from the darkness that kept them trapped.

              “So, you’re immune then. That’s great!” Vincent exclaimed.

              “Not quite,” I said and turned around to face Vincent. “I can hear them. All of them. From this city to the next. Even the ones overseas.”

              “Huh?”

              “Vincent, I turned.”

              “You what!” Vincent scrambled backwards as if I would suddenly leap out and attack with my apparently hidden claws. He ran back inside and yanked one of the guns off the console. He aimed it at me, his hand shaking. I couldn’t blame him. He had lived in the darkness with the incessant screams of these creatures for too long not to arm himself when confronted by one.

              “And I didn’t turn. It’s hard to explain. I can feel them, hear them. But I’m really not one of them,” I explained.

Vincent didn’t lower his gun. He kept it pointed at my chest. I walked back into the building and closed the door, hoping it would ease his mind.

              “Don’t move!” he challenged, backpedalling away from me.

              “Look,” I said. “We don’t have time for this. The power source is failing and that barrier will fall soon. The creatures will run rampant through the city. They will kill everyone. We can’t let that happen, now, will you help me?”

              “How can you stand here if you turned? You’re on the wrong side of the barrier!” He didn’t even hear my plea. The gun rattled in his hand. He wasn’t going to be able to help me like this. All he saw was a creature that was no longer human, even though I physically remained the same. I wondered if turning while within the barrier made me immune to the five thousand effect.

              “Put that fucking gun down, now!” I sneered. The instance my demeanor changed his aura also changed. I didn’t know if it was these new eyes of mine, but it was like he glowed yellow. His trigger finger retracted to the outside of the gun. The shock of my comment made him misstep.

              Within that instant, I was upon him, not even knowing I could be so fast, so precise. I grabbed him by the wrist and stretched his hand with the gun outwards. With my other hand I lifted him up by the throat and shoved him against the monitors.

              “Now is not the time!” I screamed. “I need your fucking help!”

              Vincent dropped the gun as I tightened my grip on his wrist. His eyes were wide enough for me to know my message got through.

              “Okay. Okay. Just let me down,” he wheezed.

              “I need to get to them as quickly as possible. What’s the quickest way?” I set Vincent gently down.

              “I don’t know. I haven’t left this room in years.” He coughed and rubbed his throat. He remained timid, and flinched as if I would strike him. “But I have something that might help. It’s outside.” He pushed himself away from the monitors and walked through the door. I followed as Vincent kept close the building, still afraid the creatures would leap out of the darkness.

              I found myself wondering why I could still stand on both sides of the barrier. There were no effects from either side as I crossed the threshold. Somehow I had adapted to the five thousand effect. When I turned the effect must have canceled out somehow. Maybe that is why there were a couple of walkers down in the installation.

              Vincent stopped near the corner of the building and pointed at a garage that sat a few dozen yards away.

              “Inside there. She should run. Gas is in the tanks sealed up behind her. That’s all I got for you,” Vincent said, breathing heavily as he walked passed. “Keys in the ignition.” He continued without a goodbye, returning to the station. Not long after, I heard the door slam shut. I wondered if this would be the last time I saw Vincent.

              Running across the darkness felt different now, as if the thousands of voices of this city reassured me that darkness was home, even though they wanted to break away from it. It had become second-nature, this strange, unnatural twilight. Even though they resented the night they’d still lived within it for years.

Thunder rang overhead. The antenna above blinked red. There wasn’t much time left. I had to get to the horde before the barrier fell.

              I hadn’t driven a vehicle in so long, though driving wasn’t something you forgot. The truck was nimble for its size as it rumbled down the streets. The headlights cut a clear path through the damaged city. Crossing over the center lane to avoid the overturned wreckage of an eighteen wheeler, it was hard to imagine how this city had survived, or at least grown into something so different.

              Some creatures started running alongside the truck. Their screams roared over the engine, but they also ricocheted through my mind. They couldn’t understand how one of theirs was controlling such a thing. Some scraped at the truck’s sides, claws dragging across the metal, though they made no real attempt to attack. I kept hearing them shout that the truck was too loud in their quiet atmosphere, and in fact terrorized them. They all felt the same fear. The millions who were connected shuddered in the same horror, and soon it massed into a riot.

              I took a right turn and zoomed past the dark, dead park where I’d been earlier. Onward I roared passed the glass lawyer’s office, Dylan and Dylan, and crossed the long bridge. I retraced my steps by following the voices like a guide. They were pointing me exactly where they were.

              None of the voices had a recognizable idea. They all screamed in an illogical mess. Their fear was constant in my thoughts, even though I wasn’t the one afraid. But their emotions were becoming my own. It was hard to displace them from my own feelings. They were more human than I’d anticipated, but they weren’t capable of maintaining humanity for long. They screamed in pain that ascended to madness, turning to anger and rage.

             
“Kill. Run. Free,”
the words rattled through my head, overshadowing the more non-coherent statements. They all howled in questions and millions more responded. I had only been linked for less than an hour and I was already starting to lose it. They had been linked for years.

It was no wonder they were crazed, or attacked anything that wasn’t the horde. Their actions may not even be their own, not really. Thinking about it, these other creatures could be directing them from afar, even overseas. Though directing was the wrong term. It was more like losing oneself to the madness of hearing so many voices scream in the darkness.