To Save or Kill Them

Chapter 5: Building the Crew

The small clearing came into view as the three cautiously approached it. Hanging back in the trees Nathan surveyed the clearing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He thought for a moment and double checked the clearing before leaving the trees. There wasn’t even the hideout. Had he gotten lost?

“It’s supposed to be right here.” Nathan said motioning the area around him. He dropped to his knees and pawed at the dirt. Their last hope of shelter was gone; it would be too dangerous to set up camp anywhere else. Nathan brought his hands to his face, ash slipped between his fingers causing him to curse under his breath. “They were here too…” His voice trailed off through the air as he stood quickly. He staggered a moment, feeling light headed. He caught his balance and stared at Randy.

Randy turned toward Nathan and saw his wild animal like glare. “What?”

Nathan paced for a moment and then struck. He caught Randy by the collar and slammed his back into a tree. Randy fell back surprised by Nathans strength. Alex stood to the side and slowly sat down in the dirt. She examined the area, ignoring the two men.

“Why are you here? You said you’re just a scientist and medic.” Nathan spoke his words spitefully, keeping his voice just above a whisper.

“I… I’m just here to help with injuries.”  Randy stuttered, tripping over his own words.

 Nathan drew back his hand ready to strike him, but saw something in his eyes. Fear, nothing but fear. “What were you ‘scientists’ working on?” He asked, letting the anger roll off his tongue.

“I don’t know…”

“Don’t lie to me.”  Nathan drove his fist into the trunk of the tree barely missing Randy.

“I didn’t know… not until I found the files…” Randy cut himself off, glancing around as if he expected to be killed on the spot.

“What files?” Nathan loosened his grip, completely surprised by Randy’s words.

“I work for REDTECH, Revival of Enclosed Death cells. We were working on a serum that could potentially change the world. It could bring people killed within the last hour back to life, but our job was to take it another step farther…”

Alex slowly stood and listened carefully to Randy. Tossing his words around in her head to make sense of what he was saying.

“I didn’t know what we were working on, no one did. So I found the file and once I saw what was inside I knew I had to stop the production. So many calculations were off and once someone is dead they should stay that way… the test subjects would come back ‘different’. I stole the research and took off. I was going to destroy it, but…”

“But you could make money through the black market.” Nathan accused.

“No it’s not like that… someone else got the info from the inside and they were planning to distribute it to anyone willing to pay a price. I worked on a cure and I have been going over calculations, errors, and probabilities ever since I found out.” He pulled out folded paper from his vest pocket and shook them in the air. “I can stop it, but I need the equipment.”

“What did you find out?” Alex asked gently pulling Nathan away from Randy.

“I was one of the first to hear that the infection started… they thought they could contain it to a small area, but a virus like this has to spread it’s how it survives. It can adapt, just like anything else. So they blocked off every mode of entry to the city, cut off phone communication, airports, lakes, rivers, you name it and it wasn’t of access.”

“They stranded everyone?”

“Even the healthy, if they would have listened to me, none of this would have happened.” Randy took a deep breath a slid down the tree trunk. It felt good to reveal all the lies the corporation had set.

Nathan paced and ran his hand through his dark brown hair, sighing. Alex kept muttering things to herself, trying to piece the puzzle together.

“Can you stop this? If we can find the equipment that you need could we stop all of this? Can you cure them?” Nathan sounded more desperate then he was anything else.

Randy rubbed the stubble on his chin, “I don’t know, maybe. It’s too hard to tell. They have been infected for so long and most were brought back to life when they were already dead. Some have such severe injuries even if they were cured they would die from those. Besides you have to keep into account that all of those things walking around out there have no working heart. The heart stops beating the moment the infection fully spreads. That’s why it’s not immediate contamination.”

“What can you do?” Nathan asked louder then he meant to.

Randy backed away from him, afraid he would try to attack him again. “I can try, but the cure will only be useful to those exposed within a twenty-four hour time frame.”

Alex held Nathan by the arm and spoke softly to Randy. “That’s good enough for me. We need to protect as many people as we can, and right now a cure is our only option.”

Randy nodded and Nathan pulled away from Alex. “Fine, but where do we go to make this ‘cure’?”

Alex could only think of one person who could help, but she knew Nathan would not be happy. As if reading her thoughts Nathan slammed his fist back into the tree. “We can’t go to him… Alex you know we can’t go back there.”

“Nathan he is our only hope.”

Randy looked at the two confused. “Who?”

Nathan met his gaze and said very sternly, “It doesn’t matter; we are not going back there.”

Alex sighed. “Nathan, he is our only chance to do this.” She walked over to Nathan and gently placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Fine, but if he tries something I will kill him… slowly and painfully.”

            Randy dramatically threw his head back. “Who are we talking about here?”

            Nathan stormed off twirling his hunting knife, leaving Alex to explain. “A month after we lost communication with our base we met Connor Phillips. He calls himself The Ghost since he can move throughout the city undetected. A group of survivors led us toward him so we could repair our communications equipment. Apparently he had helped others with similar problems. When we got there we were ambushed by rouge soldiers. They took our equipment and our ammunition. My best guess is that he is your black market man.”

            “Why do you say that?”

            “He had papers similar to yours in his study and he is desperate to get this.” Alex pulled a small, steel cylinder out of her pocket and held it out for Randy to see. Randy’s eyes widened at the sight of the cylinder. “Do you know what this is?”

            Randy took it from her and ran his finger across its surface. It was still warm. “No wonder he wants this back, it still has the specimen inside of it.” He twisted both ends of the cylinder in opposite directions and pulled out the pins. “This is a containment cylinder. We used them in our lab to keep track of all of our tests. This is an original and its seal has been broken before. He must have been using this to further his research. Without it he has to start all over.” The center slide contracted within its self, revealing an opaque, blue liquid. “See this is what we were working on. Each cylinder contains thousands of specimens and by the looks of this one he has used it several times. He must have been close to whatever he was working on. He would have needed a live subject to run tests on, but these things are tricky and unpredictable. Did he have any containment cells?”

            “We weren’t there long, but we saw some dead on our way out.” Nathan said quickly as he walked back over and slipped his blade back in place on his belt. “Under no circumstances do we give them that cylinder. We will need another bargaining chip.”

            Alex and Randy nodded their response.

            “Let’s go find us a Ghost.”