The Controlled

  The Controlled

  * * *

  Ben Appleton

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Ben Appleton

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any mechanical or electronic means, including information storage retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design and artwork by VectorArtist

  1

  I raise my head as someone enters the breakout room from the labs, but quickly lower it again on spotting who it is, feigning interest in the latest dog-eared and food-smeared copy of New Scientist, and pick up my mug of tea.

  ‘Sorry to hear you didn’t get the promotion Aaron,’ says Paul, moving over to the kettle.

  The sound of my mug slamming onto the table is just a little too loud.

  ‘Oh, don’t you know? Sorry, I just assumed you’d been told,’ replied Paul, every word dripping with barely contained glee. He flashes me his trade mark self-satisfied grin and busies himself with making his own tea.

  ‘Nobody told me,’ I manage, looking up at Paul and trying desperately to sound nonchalant. ‘So, who’s the lucky recipient then?’

  ‘You’re looking at the new Senior Scientist Grade Two.’ Paul points both thumbs to his chest, and finishes with a ‘ta da!’, knowing full well what effect his bombshell is going to have on me.

  Screw this. I’ve been waiting for a promotion for four years. Four years! My work ethic is good, my results are research-grade quality and I don’t rock the boat. What more do I have to do? Paul has been here less than a year, and, as far as I can tell, has achieved precisely nothing in that time.

  I don’t bother to hide my feelings now, tossing the magazine across the table, and throwing my chair back as I rise.

  ‘I would say congratulations Paul, but we both know you don’t deserve it. What did you do? Get daddy to use his influence?’

  I know it’s a mistake as soon as I’ve uttered it. Paul’s face manages to morph into the mother of all arrogant expressions, drinking in my disappointment, positively glowing in triumph, and winding up for the inevitable put-down, Paul being a master of subtle rage-inducing barbs.

  Rather than suffer his crowing, I stomp across the breakout area towards the door to the labs, all the while feeling Paul’s smug gaze boring into my back.

  We both jump as the alarm above the exit door behind us springs into life.

  ‘Crap, I think I’ve wet myself,’ says Paul behind me.

  We both instinctively look up at the alarm, though I’m not sure what we think it will show us, seeing as it’s just a couple of speakers and a red lamp. The alarm is really loud and very annoying, one of those whooping noises in a constant loop which slowly drives you insane. While the alarm maddens the ears, the room erupts into a hellish red-strobed disco as the bulb below the speakers rotates to madden the eyes.

  A couple of seconds later and the second loud-speaker above the alarm springs nerve-shreddingly to life, even louder than the first alarm.

  ‘Goddamn it,’ I mutter, jumping for the second time in a matter of seconds.

  ‘I really have wet myself now. Just a little.’ Paul looks down at his crotch and I’m really glad he’s behind me and out of sight.

  ‘All personnel, please exit the facility by the nearest emergency exit. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ I say, finally looking at Paul.

  The raging emotions boiling within me, the triumphant feelings Paul has, all morph into worry in the blink of an eye.

  ‘Not the haz labs again, surely?’ he says, paling visibly, all vestiges of arrogance wiped off his face.

  ‘Now that was scary,’ I reply. ‘We’d better leave, we don’t want to get infected with fungus, or in your case, more fungus than you’ve already got nestled in your cracks and folds.’ I just can’t help getting in a barb, even now, but inside abject fear starts to take control. Some of the stuff the haz labs work on is lethal, and potentially contagious.

  With a nod of silent agreement, we both make for the door to the reception area, but a few steps before we reach it, the door bursts open and a flustered-looking security guard stumbles through, red-faced and panting.

  ‘Shit,’ he says, turning to face the flashing red light above the door. ‘The alarm’s on in here as well.’

  He notices us and waves absently as he bends over to catch his breath. ‘Can’t go that way lads,’ he gasps, then taking a second to suck in a reedy breath before continuing. ‘They’re not allowing anyone through to the tech labs.’

  He’s really unfit and wheezing heavily. Sweat runs in rivulets down his face, and he seems to be having even more difficulty breathing as the seconds tick by, probably not helped by his enormous size, his huge gut almost obscuring the utility belt holding up his trousers.

  ‘What’s going on? Why have they locked down the tech building?’ I ask, but the fact that whatever is happening seems to be based around tech labs and not the haz labs is music to my ears, and I start to relax.

  ‘No idea, but everyone in there is going totally ape-shit,’ replies the guard.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asks Paul, relief tinging his voice at the realisation that there isn’t some lethal pathogen leaking from the haz labs down the corridor. It doesn’t stop him repeatedly glancing back in their direction though.

  The guard straightens, trying to compose himself, and then quickly doubles over again, erupting in bout of phlegmy coughing, and clinging on to the edge of the table next to the exit.

  ‘They’re attacking each other in there,’ he finally manages, in between gasping breaths. ‘I don’t know, it’s really odd, there’s no punching or kicking, nothing like that. They’re spitting and biting and really going for it. One of the bastards even bit me. Fucking disgusting.’

  The guard is in extreme distress now, sweat soaking his shirt, and his breathing is really ragged and laboured. Although the alarm is unnerving, as is the fact that the tech boys seem to have gone postal, for some reason seeing the guard like this is even more worrying. He can only have waddled a hundred metres at most.

  ‘Do you have asthma?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ he gasps, ‘No asthma. This feels weird, I’m really dizzy. I need to sit down, that’s all.’

  ‘We need to get out of here. I’m not waiting for the trouble to find its way here. Let’s head to the other emergency exit through the labs. You can sit down when we get out.’

  We set off back up the corridor, just in time to see the last of the other scientists and technicians leaving through the exit door at the end. As we pass my lab, I stop. ‘Hang on, I want to get my bag.’ I rush in and grab my backpack, quickly checking that my keys and phone are there.

  ‘Fuck, Aaron, something’s seriously wrong with this guy,’ shouts Paul from outside the lab while I finish grabbing my stuff.

  As I scurry back out, the sight in the corridor stops me dead in my tracks. The security guard is lying on the floor, twitching spasmodically, rolls of flab rippling in time to his jerky movements. He’s on his back, legs akimbo and for some reason his hands are curled up into claws over his chest.

  ‘Oh crap,’ I manage, temporarily stunned at the sight. I’ve never seen anyone this ill before.

  ‘He just dropped and started this,’ says Paul, waving at the prone form in front of him. ‘What do we do?’

  I move forward gingerly, about to kneel down and do -
well, I’ve no idea what I’m going to do - when the guard lets out a loud groan and stops twitching.

  ‘Fuck, is he dead?’ shrieks Paul, jumping back from the guard. ‘He is, isn’t he? He’s fucking dead!’

  I hesitate for a moment, and then place my fingers on the guard’s neck, feeling for a pulse. At first, I can’t find anything, but move my fingers around a little, and there it is, weak but definitely there. ‘He’s alive.’

  ‘Well, thank God for that, I couldn’t cope with a dead body.’

  I’m not sure what to do. The guard is alive, the alarm is still whooping, the loud-speaker still ordering us to the exit, and I have no idea what is going on.

  ‘Erm, I think we should put him in the recovery position,’ I finally say, thinking that at least it can’t do any harm. ‘Give me a hand, will you.’

  Paul, comes over and grabs the guard’s shoulders, twisting his upper body, while I push on his lower back. ‘Bloody hell,’ says Paul, struggling to roll the guy over, ‘he weighs a ton.’

  We finally manage to prop him on his side and stand back, just as the guard bursts back into life with an explosion of wracking coughs and then lets out a short groan before falling silent again. Paul and I both back off instinctively and stare at the now still guard, the only movement being the slight rise and fall of his chest.

  Without further warning, the guard suddenly bolts up into a sitting position, staring blankly around.

  ‘Are you OK? We thought we’d lost you for a while there, fella,’ says Paul, recovering his wits slightly more quickly than me.

  On hearing Paul’s voice, the guard slowly rotates his head towards him. His eyes are a little red-rimmed now and there’s a bit of drool around his mouth, but his sweating has stopped and he’s no longer wheezing like an old set of bellows.

  Paul moves over and squats in front of the guard, holding out his hand. ‘OK, up you get, we’ve still got to get out, pronto.’

  The guard narrows his eyes for a moment, then bobs his head down and clamps his mouth onto Paul’s extended fingers.

  Paul pulls his hand back quickly, staring at the teeth marks indented across his knuckles. ‘What the fuck?’ he says, glaring at the guard then steps back and shakes his hand around before tucking it under his armpit.

  The guard doesn’t reply, instead turning his head slowly towards me. His lips peel back in a rictus grin and his teeth chatter together a few times, which is possibly the most eerie and disconcerting thing I’ve ever experienced.

  ‘Hang on,’ says Paul, stepping between me and the guard. ‘What did you bite me for? Are you some sort of fucking psycho? Is this alarm all your doing?’

  The guard finally seems to notice Paul, sniffs in his direction, but instead of answering, he just clambers comically to his feet, like a new-born deer, legs splaying, and moves clumsily around Paul, knocking him into the corridor wall, and starts towards me. His movements are jerky, like a toddler who’s only been walking for a few weeks, but every step seems to get steadier. It’s mesmerising, and I curse myself when I realise he’s managed to get to within a metre of me, but before I can react he lunges with both hands, trying to grab my shoulders.

  I step back and reflexively swing my backpack around and into the side of his head. It’s not a big bag, but it’s full of stuff and quite weighty, and connects firmly with a meaty thunk, knocking him off course, so that he charges into the wall next to me. There’s no way I’m waiting to see if the crazy bastard is going to attack me again and quickly run further up the corridor, Paul a few steps behind me, mumbling and swearing.

  A glance back shows the guard still ambling towards us. He’s really slow and stumbling, but each step is getting quicker, as though he’s shaking off a dead leg.

  We reach the connecting door at the end of the corridor, which is also topped by a whooping alarm and repetitive loud-speaker and I fling the door open and step into the corridor beyond.

  ‘Close the door!’ I shout and Paul pushes it shut behind him as he sprints through after me. It doesn’t lock, the alarm activating the failsafe opening of all internal doors except the to the haz labs to ensure nobody gets trapped.

  ‘Well that’s not going to stop him, is it Einstein?’ he says, but I’m not really listening, I’m staring at wreckage strewn along the corridor leading to the haz labs.

  ‘Shit,’ I mutter. There are no people here, but bits of broken equipment and bottles of reagents are scattered along the corridor, all bathed in a sickly red pulsing glow from the hazard lighting. Bizarrely, moisture drips steadily from the ceiling and coats the windows into the labs on the left, mingling with small puddles along the far stretch of the corridor. At the end of the corridor an imposing yellow metal security door with a black biohazard symbol clearly indicates the entrance to the haz labs. It’s designed for one main role, to prevent shit getting out in the event of a breach in the Institute and the fact that it’s open ajar gives me a little less confidence that whatever this is, it hasn’t originated from inside the haz labs.

  The emergency exit to the outside of the building, halfway along the corridor, is also open. The fact that no people are in the corridor means everyone else from our labs must have got out, but why the mess here in the corridor? The emergency exit is the only way in or out other than through the crazy security guard or through the haz labs, so we’ve no choice but to use it.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I say, as Paul sidles up behind me, a little out of breath.

  ‘Too many cigarettes,’ he puffs, as we head towards the exit.

  As we reach the open door, three things happen at once.

  One, the guard bursts through the door at one end of the corridor.

  Two, a hazmat-suited figure strides into the corridor from the emergency exit.

  Three, Paul coughs uncontrollably and squats down beside me, holding one hand on the floor to steady himself, the other banging against his chest, trying to clear his lungs.

  Security guard stumbles single-mindedly up the corridor towards us, teeth chattering and clearly insane.

  ‘Come on Paul, we need to go,’ I plead and tug at his shoulder to try and get him to move, all the while playing eyeball tennis between the security guard and the hazmat suit converging steadily on us in a pincer movement.

  ‘OK, OK, I’m coming,’ he says, and staggers upright, before immediately slumping against the wall.

  ‘Come on!’ I scream, but it’s too late. The security guard has narrowed the distance to just a couple of metres. Close enough for me to see the cascades of drool spilling down his chin, and his red-rimmed eyes, more deeply inflamed than before. A couple more steps and he’ll be on us.

  A whooshing sound erupts from behind me, and a jet of scalding steam streaks past my shoulder, hitting the security guard squarely in the face. He staggers, but doesn’t fall, as the skin across his face reddens then peels. It must be utter agony, but he doesn’t utter a sound, doesn’t stop, it just slows him down. I watch as his eyelids disintegrate, exposing his eyeballs to the superheated water, which starts to quickly eat into the soft tissue. His inexorable progress towards us is only cut short when the steam enters his mouth, filling his lungs and cauterising his throat. He drops to the floor clutching at his neck, gasping for breath.

  ‘Go!’ the hazmat suit says as he steps into view. His voice is muffled by the helmet he’s wearing and I can’t see his face as the visor is smeared with condensation and what looks like specks of blood.

  ‘Now,’ he repeats. ‘That guy won’t stay down for long. They seem to recover quickly from anything thrown at them. And, more importantly, there are more coming through from the tech building.’

  Turning, I look back down the corridor towards the main labs, and stare, open-mouthed, at the ragged group of people shambling and staggering towards us. Like the guard, they’re uncoordinated, like puppets being handled by child, but that only serves to increase the aura of grotesque horror pulsing through the corridor.

  ‘Move!’ shouts hazmat an
d with a final rustle of polymeric fabric and a Darth Vader-like breath through his breathing apparatus, he disappears out through the emergency exit.

  I snap out of my stupefied expression, grab Paul’s arm and haul him out of the door into the car park outside.

  The car park is eerily quiet, and from the outside, everything is tranquil. You wouldn’t know that pandemonium had erupted in the buildings. The only slight breaches of the facade are the dulled tones of the alarm permeating through the walls and the two dead people splayed out in the flowerbed to one side, the skin on their faces scalded clean away to reveal glistening red meat beneath.

  Hazmat looks to where I’m staring and shrugs, mumbles something about them being like the guard and then motions us towards a large van parked on the opposite side of the car park to the buildings. The words ‘CLEAN CONSCIENCE’ are emblazoned across the side, but the van has definitely seen better days. The rust patches are visible even from here, and the number of dents in the bodywork is mind-boggling, especially those near the roof.

  Hazmat removes the helmet from his suit to reveal an Asian guy, swarthy, thirty-something with dark brown eyes. There’s something about him, some invisible aura which makes him immediately likeable. He glances back at the entrance into the building before stripping out of the suit and failing to open the driver’s door of the van, and then starts to fish around in his various pockets.

  ‘Bollocks.’ he says, doing that strange action of repeatedly patting yourself everywhere and looking down at your clothes, when you can’t find something. He tries the doors of the van again anyway, but they’re all locked. ‘Sorry,’ he says, shrugging apologetically, ‘they must be back in my locker.’

  Paul is doubled up and wheezing at my side. Just like the security guard in the breakout area.

  ‘Sod it. We can use my car,’ I say. ‘It’s over there.’ I point to a blue Ford Focus a few rows away. It’s old, but reliable, and only one not-so-careful owner.

  ‘OK’ says hazmat. ‘I’m Imran by the way.’