Dr Sarah Collins was escorted into the lab by two guards. Pavic, her boss and lead on this project, told her she would be involved in some important research today.
A body was strapped to the gurney, moving and moaning. It smelt her enter and struggled to reach for her.
She shuddered. She hated working on the “live” ones. Not the risk…it just seemed…wrong, somehow. Cutting into something that was moving.
Pavic told her to work on the eyes. She took a deep breath, and hold of the scalpel but as she leant over the body, a wrist strap snapped.
Its teeth were in her, through her, before she could react. It bit into her hand, taking off the thumb, flesh, bone and all. She screamed.
The guards came running and shot the specimen. Subdued it. Their term.
Not that it would matter.
Pavic walked into the room.
He silently cleaned the wound.
The only, and last, thing he said to her was, “I’m sorry.”
Then he turned to the guards. “Keep her under observation.”
And with that he walked away.
***
The Government’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Arnold Pavic, was tired. He took off his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose.
It was another press conference. They were always the same, their inane bloody questions.
They ask, “What is happening?” “How do we stop it?”
He answers, “I don’t know.”
But not today. Today he adds, with a sigh, “Just…just bring it out.”
“Bring it out.”
Three words that lead to disaster.
The guards brought it out. A walking corpse. A woman. It used to be a woman. It strained at its leash, grabbing and snapping at the reporters.
She could smell the flesh. It had to eat. Part of her remembered who she was. But that part was getting smaller.
The Hunger and The Pain was all she had.
And they smelt so good.
The reporters backed away, silent, shocked.
They didn’t back away far enough.
No one knew if it was luck or judgement but one minute it was shackled, the next it was free. First it just stood there. Uncertain of what to do with its new found freedom.
The smell filled her mind, the calm voice pleaded with her to resist. With a growl, the calm voice lost.
It lunged into the crowd. Biting, tearing, ripping the flesh of the assembled press, reveling in the taste, in the warm splash of the blood.
But one man…
One man she wanted.
The guards had drawn their weapons but they needed a clear shot. Orders were screamed at the paniced mass of reporters. They needed to get it clear.
“Paaaavvviiicccc.” It moaned
The last of Sarah Collins died as her corpse leapt across the room at Pavic. He held up his hands to ward her off.
“It’s going for Pavic”
“Sir. Get down”
The hand gave her a great target.She took a chunk from his hand – most of his thumb, flesh and bone, ripped away.
So he’d remember.
“Shit. It tagged him”
“NOW. GO, GO, GO”
A single shot rang out and, with a thunderclap, the hunger stopped.
Dead.
It was a shot that was, later, to be echoed by Pavic’s own. Not for him the slow descent. Not for him the indignity of feeling himself slip away.
Not that it mattered.
He’d come back.
They all come back.
