Pulse (15 page)

They would, wouldn’t they? Someone had to figure it out.

She wasn’t sure how long he had left until he woke up, but she couldn’t risk him hurting himself or her if he did before they escaped. She used her phone charger cable and some kitchen twine to bind his hands and his feet. Her tears dripped onto his tiny form as she carried him down the stairs. The neighbors blocked off the exits, but she climbed through a window in the main office. Sadie hoped the night would make it hard for the crazy people to see her.

He was easy to carry at first, but soon the weight became difficult. She frequently took breaks, resting behind dumpsters or just inside buildings.

The few miles she had to walk started to seem impossible. She was tired from sleepless nights in the apartment, her nerves fried from being so cautious.

She stroked Jon’s face. He growled in his sleep. Her hand reflexively snapped back, the action making her feel ashamed. Somewhere nearby a man was yelling for a new hen and making terrible crowing noise. Sadie picked up Jon, ignoring the burning pain in her ar
ms, and kept pressing forward.

Adam fled the scene right when the first guard went down, heading straight for his office on reflex. He anticipated a barrage of security at his office, but as he exited the elevator and headed down his hall, there was no one. They hadn't had time to review the security footage and peg the situation on Adam. Then again, it
was
his fault, but would they arrive to that conclusion based on what they saw?

He flipped the lock on the door as he imagined insane, infected people coming for him. The white worms slithering down the hallway after him.

Deep breath. Breathe, you aren’t breathing
.

As he tried to calm himself down he flicked on his computer and pulled up the video feed for the host retaining rooms. After clicking through, he finally found the mess he was looking for.

Two new guards were on the ground in the host room, their bodies crawling with worms. Adam flicked to the viewing room. Another handful of guards were gesturing wildly, obviously unsure of what to do.

No one could help anyone. If one batch of worms from a host was powerful enough to take out three guards, it wasn’t surprising how the parasite was taking over like wildfire. Adam pressed his fingertips against his cheek.

It wasn’t surprising at all.

“Oh God, listen to yourself,” Adam groaned to his empty office. “This isn’t about you!”

He accessed security from the rest of the host storage buildings. All the night security was rushing towards the scene. They were all distracted. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about Adam Baker, the cause of it all. That was why no one came for him. In fact, they might not even know he’d been there.

But they would. Eventually. Once they reviewed the footage and audio recordings in the room, they’d know Adam’s involvement.

Adam’s mind raced as he desperately tried to weave an excuse for what he did. He hoped his boss would see the necessary logic in trying to prevent the host from killing himself. He had a whole spiel about it. Damage control, he thought.

But as he replayed the events in his head, there was no getting around it. He messed up and two guards—the number rising—were dead because of it. Those men were gone because of his scientific inclinations. He blamed it on sleeplessness, desperation, and an overstressed mind.

Worst of all, he might be infected himself. Adam dug his first aid kit from his bottom desk drawer and doused the wound on his cheek with alcohol and put a Band-Aid on it. It stung as though the worm were still in it. The hole was circular, the ends slightly ragged from where it’s little teeth tore away. It was already puckering, looking infected and yellowed.

His daughters watched him from a photo on his desk. Disneyland for their eighth birthdays. Should he call them? Say goodbye while he was still himself?

No. It would scare them. If they even cared.

He wasn’t sure how to proceed. It was obvious he’d gotten out of hand. With the pressure to come up with answers and his own desire to understand the parasite, he let himself do something a normal person wouldn’t do. Put someone else’s life in jeopardy for his own benefit.

Adam collapsed into his desk chair, the reality of his terrible situation fully sinking in. He ran through the stages of infection, imagining himself in each. Would he be an adequate host for full maturation of the parasite? Would he be like Sam Price?

His stomach grumbled. His head was beginning to ache and he saw a fuzzy aura around the computer screen and desk lamp that reminded him of when he had a bad migraine. He wondered if it was from stress or if it was a symptom. He’d be lying to himself if he thought the former.

A chiming sound drew his attention to his computer. His email flashed; one new message.

Dr. Baker, we think we might have come up with a potential vaccination.
Please come to lab ASAP. Marla.

Vaccination? His heart fluttered with hope. Adam raised his hands to type a response when he felt a wave of dizziness sweep over him. He braced himself against the desk as he leaned over and vomited. It splashed against his shoes and made a garish brown stain on the tan carpet.

The world spun around him. He slid from his chair, landing in his own vomit, and slumped onto his side as everything went black around him.

***

Through the darkness of his subconscious, the memories of his life projected in his dreams in a long feverish sequence.

Growing up, no one understood him. They always stopped him from doing what he wanted, which was to stay indoors and read. When he was a teenager his father was ashamed of his bookworm son who was entirely uninterested in sports, the family mechanic business, or anything stereotypically masculine. Both his older and younger brother called him a faggot; he’d heard his father stifle chuckles at his siblings' tormenting jokes.

His mother was nowhere to be found. Not because she wasn’t there; she was. Instead, she was a ghost in their lives, feeding them and doing chores, sending them off to school with all the right supplies. Providing sympathetic nods or coos to everyone’s woes. But she wasn’t a real person to anyone in the family. Adam saw her in his memories as a statue, worn and tired, at the stove, at the washer and dryer. Always tucking a Kleenex into her front cardigan pocket and eyeing Adam with unspoken regret.

High school passed by. Girls thought he was cute—he heard them whispering—but everyone thought he was weird even though they couldn’t place why. Adam didn’t know why, either. He just had a deep interest in science and how things worked. That was the source of endless harassment and bullying. Being smart was something to be ashamed of.

The early adult years. The extensive college years. Memories of exams he did poorly on, or awkward and painful social encounters, were heightened. He remembered every detail of being kicked out of a theoretical debate team on genetic modification because of his “outlandish and disturbing” ideas. Getting his lab internships, working the job of his dreams.

His marriage. The job at the CDC that was politics and deskwork.

And Gina. That fucking bitch. That harlot who destroyed his entire life because she wanted a free ride of her own. That dimwitted woman who tore him away from his beloved Seattle, from his friends, from
everything
.

His memories brought him to the very moment when he told the guard to go in. When the parasite began burrowing into him.

And now.

Adam’s eyes flickered open. Before him was a view of under his desk. A mess of thick dust and computer cords. Around his body the carpet was saturated with sweat. His sweat. He registered the smell and knew it w
as his defense mechanism sweat.

Blades of sunlight cut through the room. Had he been out the night? Two nights?

It was the right thing to do, sending the guard in. The host might not have burst otherwise. But at the same time, it was wrong. Wrong only because he could’ve been caught. Because he hadn't been smart about it. Because…

The parasite was giving him a chance to reinvent himself. After this—if there was going to
be
an after this—everything would be different. A new world was brewing. One he wanted to be in control of, doing what he wanted when he wanted.

Fuck his wife, fuck his old life. He repeated the words in a sing-song voice, enjoying how they sounded. 

Incoherent thoughts kept pulsing in and out. His brain wanted to think about the past, present, and future all at once. It made him feel disoriented, sick from the overwhelming amount of things to think about. He slapped his hand against his forehead in attempt to stave off the agitated slew of thoughts, but none subsided.

He became vaguely aware that he was infected. The thought was distant, tucked away in his mind like a memory he had to recollect, but it was there. The parasite was inside of him, but it didn’t seem so bad. Set aside the frantic ideas and aching body, he felt quite like himself.

Didn’t he?

Adam pushed himself to his feet and paced around the room. Waves of anger and confusion swept over him so violently his body reared against it. He was himself, but not himself. At one moment he had control over his thoughts, the next, horrific images plagued him.

Strangling Gina and stringing her body up over her beloved mid-century coffee table they paid an outrageous amount for. Cut out those eyes that were always looking at him like he wasn’t enough.

Making his daughters beg for mercy as he skinned them, reupholstering
the front seat of the car with their skin. 

Burning everyone on campus alive, one by one, and smelling their meat as it burnt to a crisp.

Adam braced himself against a wall, panting. That little part of him saying those thoughts were wrong was quickly fading. In fact, it felt very good to relish in those images. The notion of giving in to his base desires was intensely desirable.

A series of knocks on the door drew his attention. “Dr. Baker? This is security, please open the door.”

They were here. They blamed him. They found him out.

Kill them, rip them up. Feel their blood.

The urge came over him so strongly he knew he had to satiate it.

“I’m coming,” Adam found himself saying. His voice sounded even, to his own surprise. It didn’t match the rising rage within. “Is everything okay?”

“We want to make sure you’re okay after last night. Please open the door.”

Adam scanned his office. He spotted a heavy glass award he’d received years ago for—what for? He couldn’t remember. As he hefted it into his hands he knew it would get the job done.

“I’m hurt. My leg.”

He positioned himself by the door. He heard the beep of the guard’s universal security card, then his door clicking as it unlocked itself. Adam hadn’t considered there being more than one, but lucky for him, it was just the one.

The first blow knocked him to the ground. The sharp corner of the award crushed a neat dent into his skull. Blood spurted wildly over the floor and wall. His body convulsed.

Adam brought the bludgeoning device down over and over until his arms felt tired and there wasn’t anything left of the security guard’s skull but pulpy brain and fragments of bone.

He felt good. He felt
alive
. Everyone should feel like this, Adam thought. Before the parasite got him, the infection was spreading with alarming speed. Now it wasn’t going fast enough. Could it be stronger? Could incubation times be reduced? There was much to learn.

He turned and faced his office. His gaze fell onto his computer. The email Marla sent last night…a vaccination…

Vaccination? Cure? That was bad. That meant he couldn’t do what he wanted to. All the new budding dreams he had of experimentation, killing, and being true to his desires would be gone.

No, that must be put to a stop. To maintain his freedom from the constraints of bureaucracy and morals there couldn’t be anything stopping the infection from spreading. Didn't anyone understand the beauty and complexity of its design? How it was freeing the world from whatever burdened them?

This is what he was meant for. That grand thing he'd been waiting for his entire life. It wasn't God or the paranormal. It was a little white worm that ate people from the inside out, that gave others the ability to be truly free.

His daughters’ faces again. He picked up the photo and threw it across the room, the glass and frame shattering against the wall. He didn’t have to regret the past two decades. Now he could do what he wanted. He’d go back to Seattle, where he’d wanted to be his entire life, and start anew. And, to make it all even better, he knew what his topic of interest would be upon arrival. The parasite. Anything and everything to do with it.

Here it was; Adam Baker’s Big Break.

He began printing his reports and notes, shoving them into his briefcase. It would all help him launch his own research and experimentation once he found a good place to settle in. Would his old apartment still be there? Adam supposed it wouldn’t matter if it was inhabited. He’d kill whoever was there.