Domain of the Dead (10 page)

“And risk getting posted to the South Island?” Doctor Robertson pointed out. “You wouldn’t.”

“No?” Warden challenged.

Suddenly it dawned on Dr. Robertson that this might not be an idle threat. Maybe the years out on the open water had drained him of more than his eye colour. She said defensively, “You wouldn’t. You know how important our work is here.”

“Important?!” Captain Warden snapped back. “You could kill us all! What little is left of humanity could die if you fuck up! Christ, it’s hard enough losing good men to your work, and today’s foray may well have added to the death toll you and Frankenstein have inflicted.”

Dr. Robertson changed tack. “It’s still better than the risk you’d be taking clearing out W.D.’s in New—”

“You work out this risk Doctor,” Captain Warden broke in. “You and your twisted boyfriend better start showing me some results and some respect starting with that report, nineteen hundred hours tonight!” He stepped out of the medical bay. “Or the things tied up in your lab will be the least of your worries.”

He turned and barged past Angel.

Dr. Robertson placed her palm to her forehead and let out a long breath of exasperation. She quivered slightly as the last of the air slipped out. There was a slight pause before she composed herself and started breathing normally again.

A Russian voice shook her from her introversion.

“We have term in Russia for people like him,” Angel said as she entered the room. “Zasranec.” Angel judged by her expression that Dr. Robertson’s grasp of Russian wasn’t sufficient enough for a translation. “It means asshole.”

Dr. Robertson let a smile rise on her exasperated face.

Angel smiled back. “Now would you look at my arm?”

A grey hand flexed over the clean linen. With shattered nails it rasped its mummified fingers over the cloth. A patch of grime showed where the hand had been clawing.

Professor Cutler turned the valve on the cannula protruding from the pawing hand and flicked a switch. Whirring to life, a pump started sucking half congealed vitriol from the corpse. The white tape that secured the tubing to the pallid flesh was in stark contrast to the dark brown fluid that oozed out. The cadaverous gunk trickled into a beaker at the side of the gurney.

With milky eyes, the unwilling subject followed its tormentor around the lab. The zombie would like nothing more than to sink its teeth into the flesh of its captor but the thick leather straps held it firmly down. The creature tried to give out a moan but the ball gag in its mouth stifled its plaintive call to a soggy gurgle.

Before the Rising, Professor Cutler had likened many of his contemporaries to zombies, dull minded and slavish creatures. Again and again his maverick ideas had been dismissed by the hierarchy of academia. Time and time again, Professor Cutler’s work had stood up to his peers’ scrutiny. Eventually the establishment had been forced to acknowledge this young genius. Now he was the world’s leading expert on Virology. Professor Cutler liked to think that it was in spite of most of his former colleagues being turned into actual zombies.

Satisfied that he had enough of the brown sludge, Professor Cutler twisted the valve closed with his latex-clad fingers and walked across to his workbench. He sat down on the high wooden stool beside the microscope and placed his macabre sample in front of him. Turning round, he walked past a second, empty, gurney. It had been set up to receive one of the fresh specimens from the mainland that never arrived. He made a mental note that he should tidy it away as he drew up to the lab’s fridge. On the front was a notice in his own handwriting: ‘Medical samples only. No food or drink.’

He had originally written, ‘No consumables,’ but Amy, (Doctor Robertson as he called her in public,) argued the need for such a sign since no one used the lab other than them.

Professor Cutler felt he eloquently argued the hypothetical merits of his protocol. Whether Amy had finally seen his point or simply grown bored of a fruitless debate, she had relented. As a parting shot, though, she had sunk his original sign by pointing out the rest of the crew wouldn’t know what
consumables
meant.

Professor Cutler pulled on the chrome handle and looked inside. On the top shelf at the front was a carousel neatly cradling a dozen vials on two levels. An ideogram in yellow lettering and swirling black tendrils adorned the container: ‘Danger - Biohazard’

Cutler plucked one of the vials free. Another label in Professor Cutler’s handwriting was stuck on the Perspex. It simply read ‘S-117a’.

Upon shutting the fridge door, there was a sharp click and the compressor hummed to life, the appliance determined to compensate for the intruding warmth of the lab.

The zombie strapped to the gurney writhed as it watched the human pace the room, its unwavering gaze fixed on its prey. The Professor ignored its dissent with the same mundane disregard he held for the humming fridge.

Setting the vial down next to the microscope, he opened up one of the many cupboards and pulled out a syringe and a line of plastic hose.

Like a junkie, Professor Cutler bound up his arm with the plastic tubing and sunk the needle into the most promising-looking vein. The nape of his elbow looked like a reconnaissance photo from some bombing campaign, pockmarked and scabbed in pinpricked increments. He drew yet another syringe full and taped a plaster over the leak.

The last item for the impending experiment was a fresh petri dish. He lined his equipment up in a neat row to the right of the microscope: the syringe of fresh blood, the empty petri dish, the vial of serum and finally the beaker of fluid from the cadaver. All the pieces in place, he pulled two new pipettes from a drawer in the desk and unwrapped them from their sterile casing. The wadded-up wrappers were squashed into a ball and tossed across the room towards a waste paper bin in the far corner. It hit the wall above the bucket and tumbled down onto the rim of the bin. Hitting the edge, it bounced and fell unsuccessfully onto the tiled floor.

Professor Cutler gave a huff of disgust. He flicked on the computer attached to the underside of the desk. It was an old beige thing, yet another symbol of the under-resourcing he’d had to deal with. The hard drive churned and clunked as the cooling fan gathered speed to a steady purr. Light emitting diodes blinked red and yellow and green as the relic wheezed to life. The only modern looking thing about Professor Cutler’s computer equipment was the large black box that housed the uninterrupted power supply. Like the beige box it sat beside, it too was signaling with bursts of traffic sequence lights. The ship’s erratic diesel engines and the decades old wiring competed to short out Professor Cutler’s hard drives, hence the necessity for an emergency power supply.

A sharp beep drew Professor Cutler’s attention to the monitor as it flickered on, revealing bright white lines of bootup prompts against the black.

Sometimes the computer would just freeze up at this point, usually in hot weather or if it had crashed after a prolonged amount of use. The screen jumped again, this time showing the operating system’s front window. A ribbon of rainbow colours softly paraded below the company logo. Content the machine was working, he ambled over to the bin to retrieve the wayward rubbish.

With his long fingers, he scooped up the packaging and dunked it into its rightful place in the bin.

Cutler’s tall, thin physique would have made him most people’s first choice for their basketball team, but the truth was his academic work had always taken precedence. At school he had excelled in all his subjects including sports, but as soon as the opportunity arose he had abandoned everything that didn’t support his love of biology. He still had the same mop of chocolate brown hair he had when he left school some twenty years ago. What’s more, his exodus at age seventeen to university and the seclusion of a laboratory had protected his skin from the ravages of natural light. Other than losing the acne, he had retained a youthful appearance. Unlike most other people, the Rising hadn’t drained him. Cutler knew he didn’t look his age. Part of him hoped it was his boyish looks that had attracted Amy to him, but he knew it had more to do with the lack of men with an I.Q. above one hundred onboard ship. The pragmatist he was saw no point in worrying about Amy’s reasons; just accept it and enjoy it.

With the Rising, his dogged obsession in all things microscopic had become one of the greatest assets in mankind’s arsenal. Professor Cutler liked that, not that it hadn’t always been true, but at least now the world knew it.

Well, what’s left of the world.

And with no intellectual equals within two thousand miles, he’d got the girl as well. Professor Cutler also liked that. Recognition and a healthy sex life. Had there ever been any other research professor in the history of mankind who could boast that? For one person, at least, the global catastrophe had worked out just fine.

Cutler sat back down, content with the thought as to how fortunate he was, regardless of how well deserved it may be.

He pinched the first pipette between thumb and finger and corrected the angle by a fraction of a degree. Satisfied all was regimented to perfection, he leaned back and stared at the computer screen, willing it to life. Eventually the screen lit up, accompanied by a soft chord of strings. Professor Cutler took no time to bring up the program that interfaced with the microscope. On the screen a glowing white blur appeared. Contented everything was in place, he launched the recording software.

“Test serum one-one-seven,” he said into the microphone beside the monitor.

He picked up the syringe and squirted some of the still warm blood into the petri dish. Setting it aside, he picked up the vial, and despite the lack of purchase from his latex gloves, he twisted off its cap with ease. Reaching across the table he picked up the first pipette, dipped it into the container and drew up a drop of serum. The droplet was added to the pool of blood and Cutler used the tip of the pipette to stir the elixir in. Happy that it was thoroughly mixed, he placed the petri dish under the microscope and dropped the used instrument into the bright yellow medical waste bin beside his workbench.

The screen flooded with a view of corpulent red blood cells and the room took on a pink hue as the computer monitor turned crimson. Professor Cutler adjusted the focus to see the blood cells before picking up the second pipette.

He sucked up a small amount of ooze from the container holding the loathsome zombie bile and brought it over the dish with his blood.

His hand hesitated, hovering over the petri dish as if he were waiting for the light to turn green or a starter’s whistle to sound its shrill call.

A little mantra, (a
prayer
would be the correct term if Professor Cutler were religious,) circled in his mind.

“This will work this will work this will work.”

Slowly he lowered the virus laden fluid into the blood.

* * *

Nathan emerged from the bathroom, face clean-shaven with red, leopard spot nicks. He rolled up the very corner of his towel and wedged the point into his ear. Swirling the tip frantically as he did reminded Sarah of a dog scratching an itch.

Standing in front of her with just the towel in his hand and the one around his waist, Sarah was struck by how skinny he was. She hadn’t seen him in this state of undress for such a long time. His muscles were well defined, but instead of looking toned he just looked gaunt.

She looked down at Jennifer on the bed beside her. She too was thin, but it was more due to the growth spurt she’d had in the last few months than malnourishment. When Ray had come to Sarah at the end of February with the stock take, they had all cut their rations even further, with the exception of Jennifer’s.

Nathan took the towel out of his ear. “This is the weirdest thing to feel. Like...” He paused, searching for the right words.

“Like things are normal,” Sarah said as she stroked a brush through Jennifer’s damp hair.

“Yeah,” Nathan agreed. He walked over to the dresser, rubbing the towel to his head, giving his damp hair a final rubbing. Hanging from the side of the unit was his drying Nirvana T-shirt. The faded shirt looked newer, the water sodden fabric making the colours appear darker than usual.

Nathan threw the towel he’d been using for his hair over the back of the room’s solitary chair. He reached onto the dresser and picked up his leather wristband. There was an almost imperceptible tan line across his forearm where he wore it and the brown leather of the band was scuffed and cracked, but the distressed look had been in fashion before the Rising and Nathan had said it added character. As he fastened the leather strap by its plain silver buckle, Nathan caught a glimpse of his arm.

“Jeez, would you look at that,” he said, displaying the underside of his arm to Sarah and Jennifer.

Around the grey square of residual glue left from a sticking plaster was the puncture mark from where Doctor Robertson had taken blood. Around the small red hole was a coin-sized bruise, bright purple and angry.

“That looks sore,” Jennifer said.

Nathan prodded at the bruise, gently to start with, then deeper. “Nah, its fine.”

“I thought Doctor Robertson told us to keep the plaster on for twenty-four hours,” Sarah said.