The End Came With a Kiss (5 page)

We pass through the broken parking gate and up into the bowels of the garage. Given our recent troubles here, I drive cautiously. There may still be broken loopers wreaking havoc. Level after level we rise. There is some activity but nothing dangerous. On the second to last floor, I pull the car into my spot.

Ashlyn scans for trouble. "This feels weird. Do you think any of those veg heads are still around?"

"The ones that chased you probably returned to what they were doing. I’m worried about the ones that are tearing apart the inside of my office building right now." I level my eyes on her. "You want to wait in the car?"

"What, and miss all the fun?" she says with a wry smile.

"You know what?" I say flatly. "I’ve come to a conclusion."

She looks at me as if to say, ‘Oh really?’

"You’re not right in the head." I pull on my door latch and climb out.

She gets out and comes around the side of the car. "Why am I not right in the head? Because I don’t cower in a closet somewhere?" Her youthful spirit is a pleasant distraction. I need this. It’s helping to take the edge off.

"Do you know how to use a shotgun?" I say, opening the trunk.

"I was the best skeet shooter on my daddy’s ranch."

I snatch up a shotgun, check to make sure it’s loaded, and hand it to her. "Only shoot if you absolutely have to."

She nods.

I grab my own shotgun, check it, and throw an ammo bag over my shoulder. "Unlike zombies in the movies, these guys can’t be killed, and shooting them only makes ‘em mad. So if we’re cornered, and you have to fire on one, shoot it somewhere vital to slow it down." I close the trunk and start walking.

"Have you shot many?" she says, trying to keep up with my long strides.

"Only when I’ve had to."

"Anyone you know?"

"A few."

"Why do you park so far away from the door? It’s not like you have to compete for parking."

"Why do you ask so many questions?"

"Why are you dodging my question?"

Fair point. "I used to park right at the entrance, but that made it too easy for things to sneak up behind me. This way I can see everything around the side walls before I get there."

"There. Was that so hard?"

"Harder than it had to be," I say, digging a pen light out of my pocket. "Here. You’ll need this. It will be dark on the stairwell."

We take the stairs up to the 27th floor without incident. Breathing heavily, I flag Ashlyn to stop.

"You hear something?" she says, pressing her back to the wall and pulling her gun up.

"No. This is our floor." I peek through the tiny square window in the door and flash my pen light into the office space beyond. This is not the first time I've been to my office building at night. During the quarantine wars things in the office got stirred up quite a few times where Lau thought for sure he wouldn't make it through the night.

It was not quiet like this. It was wall-to-wall pandemonium. Loopers wailing and screaming, furniture flying, glass breaking. Those who had survived the gestation and were still working in the office were ripped limb from limb. It was a gruesome bloody sight. The memory comes to haunt me as the pen light shakes in my quaking fingertips. I don't trust this silence.

Ashlyn's voice snaps me back. "D’you see anything in there?"

I flash all the way to the left and all the way to the right. The cubicle walls are only waist high. I can see a man standing on the far side of the room. I'm not sure what he’s doing, but he isn't moving erratically like they do when they're angry. That's a good sign. Not conclusive, but good.

To his right is a woman in the coffee alcove. She doesn't appear to be agitated either. Looks like business as usual. Apparently they’re not even aware that it’s night time. Their loops are broken and they have chosen to stay here in the familiarity of their daily work routine. I can't imagine working day and night—the same boring cycle—for the rest of eternity. If there is a hell, that would be it.

I pull the flashlight away from the window. "It’s a lot quieter than I expected."

"You think the danger has passed?"

"There's one way to find out." I creak the door open a crack and shine the light in. The room sounds like it does in the day time. Clicking of keyboards. The soft hiss of people pretending to be on the phone. There is even some strange fraternization that goes on. No banging, crashing or screaming. At least, not yet.

I look back at Ashlyn. She looks much calmer than I feel. I envy her. It would be nice to be young again and feel invincible. I flash the light up and down the corridor. It's clear. "Come on. I think it's safe," I say, holding the door for her. She slips by, hunched over, weapon ready in her right hand, light wiggling in the other.

"The lab is on the other side." I bring the light around. Every muscle in my body rattles with fear at the sight of a face floating in front of me. I leap back and run the light up and down. My heart’s pounding in my ears. It's Kevin from accounting, standing with that sheepish grin on his face and a coffee mug in his hand. "Seriously, Kevin! You scared me half to death!" I say, straightening up. "That's a good way to get yourself shot."

Kevin mouths some words as he grips his mug to his chest. He was probably the most chatty and unproductive person in the entire company, for which I had to bring him into my office several times. Now he is sentenced to an eternity of non productivity—walking like a specter from employee to employee, standing with that stupid grin on his face and mouthing words no one will ever hear.

Ashlyn makes a funny face. "Welcome to Creepsville. Population: this guy." She stabs a thumb at him.

It surprises me that I laugh. I guess Kevin’s business-as-usual demeanor is having a calming effect on me. This isn’t the quarantine war. These are all broken loopers, content to cycle through a thousand unique work and social routines, undisturbed by my daily interference. So what’s going on with Lau? "Sorry, Kevin. Some of us have to work," I say with a wry smile.

Our passage through the room goes mostly unnoticed. The workers are busying themselves with all manner of toil. In one cubicle a woman works the copier portion of a printer as though it has power. In another, a man pantomimes the eating of a sandwich. He must be on his lunch break, even though it is nearly 8:00 p.m.

A loud thud echoes off the walls. Ashlyn and I spin around with shotguns pointed.
Bang! Thud!
The noises seem to be coming from a few cubicles down. Horrible memories of teeth snarling and corpses lunging oppress me as we creep forward, closer and closer. Beyond the half wall of the cubicle I now hear sporadic hissing noises erupting in soft spurts. Another loud bang and a corpse rises up from the cubicle in front of us, eyes filled with rage, veins popping from his neck. Everything in me is telling me to pull the trigger, but I’m frozen. What’s restraining me? Is it that I know this guy? Yes! That’s it! I know him!

"Wait!" I say, firmly. Not that I need to. My young companion has nerves of steel. "I know this guy. He’s not raging. It’s okay."

I see his hand pressing his phone tight to his head. I can almost hear him screaming: "I want four truckloads of distilled water on our loading docks by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow or you don’t get paid!"

Stan was the lead project manager, my go-to guy. He was a bit of a hot head, but he always got the job done. It’s still hard to see him like this.

His cellphone hand drops to his side and he raises the other to wave. There is a sheepish look on his face. He was always apologetic after losing his temper on the phone. As quick as he appeared, he drops down and vanishes behind the cubicle wall.

"And I thought things were weird at my house," says Ashlyn, lowering the shotgun. Her eyes snap to me. She must notice the look of shock on my face. "What?" she says.

"I’m just surprised you didn’t freak out and shoot him."

Her face curdles like milk. "I’ve been hunting since I was old enough to hold a .22. You can’t go shooting everything that twitches."

"That was a little more than a twitch."

"If you shoot a bear, it doesn’t kill ‘em, it just makes ‘em angry."

This young woman continues to surprise me. I don’t know why, but even with the hard leather biker jacket, tight leather gloves and padded motorbike pants, I pegged her for a college kid.

"Are you a farmer’s daughter or something?"

"Hardly," she says aghast. "My father was the most sought-after horse trainer in the States."

"Oh. So you were raised on a horse ranch."

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

I scowl. "I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just odd to see a beautiful young girl doing motorcycle stunts and handling a shotgun like a pro."

"Young girl?" she says indignantly. "I’m twenty!"

I shake my head and start heading back up the corridor. "I’ll just keep my observations to myself."

"Yeah. Do us both a favor," she says, following.

When we get to the lab I swipe my card in the door lock. It clicks. As I push it open, light from inside the antechamber spills out into the office space. A couple of workers take notice but they have no process for this so they just stare, like Katherine does when I cause her to slip a groove.

I open the door to let Ashlyn in. The space is confined, and we must jockey positions to get the door closed behind us. Through the glass in the next door I can see Lau sitting on a stool at one of the lab tables. He is quiet and unmoving. Eyes closed. Is he dead? I rap on the glass, and his body flails. Nope. Not dead. He slides his portly body off the lab stool, wide eyed, and makes his way over to the door, glancing nervously to his right as he approaches. What’s going on? He looks at me and then at Ashlyn. Beads of sweat cover his forehead and duck-like upper lip. His Asian eyes become even tighter slits as he presses a button next to the door.

"Who’s she?" he says in frail defiance.

I press the one on our side. "A friend."

His shoulders sink and his face tightens.

I stab my button again. "Open up, Lau. She’s safe."

I can tell his brilliant mind is on overload. When it comes to splicing genomes there is no one in the world smarter than Lau, but proper social etiquette is beyond his ability to grasp. It is not surprising that, until recently, he still lived with his mother.

"Open the door, Lau. I’m still your boss."

He presses again. "I haven’t seen a paycheck in over a month."

I slam my fist against the window. He flinches. "Open the door, Lau or I’ll let you starve in there."

His finger shoots out and the door buzzes.

"Thank you," I blurt as I push through.

In his typical awkward fashion, Lau shuffles backwards and allows us to enter.

"So what’s going on? What was all the…" Before I can get the words out, I notice it. The reinforced glass on the holding chamber is cracked like a giant spider web. In the center is a bloody mess. "What happened?"

"Betty," he squeaks.

"Is she okay?"

"Who’s Betty?" says Ashlyn, close on my heels.

"As far as we can tell, she is patient zero, one of our product testers."

"You were using this stuff on humans?" she asks, appalled.

"We used monkeys first," offers Lau.

Her head snaps around. On her face is disgust.

Lau shrinks back. "Lots of monkeys," he says weakly.

The holding chamber is a twelve-by-twelve glass cube that goes from the floor to the ceiling, with another smaller glassed-in chamber to the right. That’s where scientists can interact with whatever is inside, whether it be a human, an animal, or just a contaminant on a lab table. To the right of these rooms is a stainless steel decontamination chamber with a sealed metal door. I look at the damage to the reinforced glass and my mind reels. This would be a pain to fix even
if
the entire infrastructure hadn’t collapsed. Through an unbroken section I see Betty kneeling on the floor. Her face and body are covered in blood, but she has healed already.

"What set her off?" I ask.

"You put her in a holding cell," says Ashlyn, hotly. "Of course she’s gonna go bat crazy."

"Actually, she put
herself
in the holding cell."

Ashlyn’s eyes stare and blink at him.

"She spent much of her job in there," I explain. "When she died, this was the most significant place for her to be."

"Doesn’t she have a home? A family?"

"I honestly don’t know. If she did, she never said anything about them. She lived alone."

"She had a dog," says Lau.

I can’t help but notice the word ‘had’ in his statement. It’s true, she had a dog, but we brought the dog in and put it in the chamber with her to keep her calm. She
has
a dog, but where is it now? Did she kill it? I spin around and look at Lau, trying to hold most of my horror in.

"Oh!" he says, with startled understanding. "He’s okay. He’s in the decon chamber. They weren’t getting along, so I moved him."