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Subject 137

Brian Boru

     “Whatever you do, don’t panic, Mr. Edwards. Everything is going to be all right,” intoned a phlegmatic voice through a speaker in the ceiling.
    Ian Edwards awoke on an examination table in what appeared to be an operating room. Through his blurred vision, he could make out stark-white walls and a high intensity light above that shone down on him. He cautiously sat up in the unfamiliar room. Icy beads of panic, sickness or both ran down his back. The room was rent with the smell of bleach and disinfectant, but the stench of rot rose above it.
    “Where am I?” he gasped and looked around the room to inventory his surroundings.
    His vision cleared and he saw a large mirror in the wall. Ian’s eyes focused on his reflection. His throat closed up and his heart skipped a beat. What stared back at him was the cadaverous face of death.
    On the opposite side of the two-way mirror, Dr. McCade swiveled in his chair to face his research assistant, David.
    “Hey, why do you even bother with that ‘don’t panic’ diatribe?” McCade asked. Without looking up from his monitor, David replied, “Call it a way to work through my guilty conscious. I know what we do here and you can say it’s in the name of science, but to me it’s still –” McCade cut him off with a loud slurping gulp from a can of diet Pepsi and mumbled, “Whatever.”
    The observation room was a state-of-the-art virology mini-lab complete with a viewpoint into its Level 4 containment room. McCade watched Subject 137 regain consciousness and look around. Again he turned to David, his straight man for every sick joke. With a mock look of terror, his eyes snapped wide. Imitating many past research subjects he cried out, “Why me! I’ll do anything you want. Just help me!” He slapped his sweaty hand on David’s shoulder and squealed out a peal of sadistic laughter. He then slurped from his soda and let out a loud belch.
    David clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut to maintain his composure. He took a deep cleansing breath and began to record the log entry for Ian Edwards. He hoped after today, this would be the last he would do.
    “Subject 137 was procured at 23:14 outside his place of work. There were no witnesses or casualties in the process. The Lazarus pathogen was administered at 01:24 via aerosol agent. Subject has regained consciousness at 03:17. Vitals follow –” McCade interrupted
    “I’ll be in the can if you need me.” Then he rocked his obese body to his feet.
    “Please remember to flush, sir!” David pleaded.
    A half hour later, the floor creaked when Dr. McCade lumbered back to his chair. “Aah. Ten pounds lighter.” He giggled.
    “Sir?” David inquired.
    “Be a good assistant and unclog the toilet,” McCade ordered.
    “Ugh,” David muttered and left the room.
    Ian stumbled from the exam table. His rubbery legs, tried to give out. He cautiously approached the mirror and the ghastly image it reflected. He slowly reached out to touch his reflection, but withdrew at the last second. His eyes were bloodshot. Deep black lines encircled them. The rest of him was devoid of color. Panic raced through his mind in trying to solve this enigma. He remembered working late, walking through the parking garage, then a quick, sharp pain in his back. After that everything went black and he awoke here.
    “Hello!” he yelled.
    Was this someone’s sick idea of a joke? A crippling wave of nausea hit him followed by a vicious coughing fit that drove him to his knees. He gasped for air like a fish out of water and vomited copious amounts of blood – black blood devoid of life.
    “Oh God.” He moaned.
    Dr. McCade opened yet another diet Pepsi and slurped noisily at it as if it were ambrosia. A tiny river of soda trickled down his multiple chins and pooled on his once-white 8XXL lab coat. Stains of reds, browns, and yellows from past meals covered it. He reached for a family-sized bag of potato chips and his reinforced office chair squealed in protest. He fed himself fist after fist of chips and chewed with his mouth open.
    “Hey!” he exclaimed. “Did I tell you the one about the priest, the rabbi, and the altar boy?” he asked with childish glee.
    “Yes. Three times already.” David sighed.
    “Well, just in case you forgot any of it,...” McCade began and retold the tasteless joke.
    David had been cooped up with this disgusting creature for eight long months. Dr. McCade was the most brilliant virologist he’d ever seen, but he was also a vile, lecherous, gluttonous beast lacking any sense of social grace. He had created the Lazarus Pathogen, a virus more deadly than Ebola and the Black Plague combined. Lazarus was a wholesale killer with a twist--so called reanimation. Once infected, the host would exhibit a myriad of symptoms: blurred speech, headache, vomiting and coughing up of blood, coma and death. Over 66.7% of subjects fell into a coma-like state after approximately six hours. The other 33.3% died. In the surviving hosts, the virus mutated and took over control of motor functions. It “reanimated” the host into a rapacious, mindless killer. It then spread itself via blood or saliva through acts of violence and cannibalism. The subjects had the appearance, locomotion, and lack of consciousness one would perceive as the walking dead.
    McCade had created The Game Changer in warfare. Once this virus was dropped on the opposition it would be just a matter of days before total victory. The beauty of it was that no casualties would be inflicted on our side. After reanimation, the infected would die within three days. But during those days, they would infect or kill as many as they could. If today’s testing went well, development would begin on an aerosol delivery agent, and David would be untethered from McCade.
    Ian wretched and coughed up more clotted blood. He felt like his insides had been put through a garbage disposal. Between fits he pleaded, “Someone get me a doctor, please! Something is terribly wrong.”

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