ECOPOCALYPSE CH.5 - SHIT STORM
By Annie Evett
You grab Madge’s hand, realising that she was always
the strong one in the family. She had been the one to teach you to ride a bike,
pick you up, and put a band-aid on your scraped knee. She’d beaten up the
bullies in the school yard. Hell, her best friend had been your first conquest.
You’d always suspected she had been behind that and, looking in to her eyes,
you are now sure that she is the one who has been behind everything good in
your life.
“Madge , You go. Get the unit over to the CDC. You’re
the best one for the job. I belong here. I should never have been the president
of this dumb company. You should have. You would never have gotten us
into all this.”
“Shit.” she smiled. “No I wouldn't have, but
them’s the breaks, huh?”
You fiddle with the unit and make some unnecessary
adjustments, unsure of what to say. Sharing emotions had never been one of the
family’s strong points.
“Well?” Madge taps the table next to the control box
of the unit. “You coming or what?”
“I’ll stay. The unit is good to go, as good as I can
get it right now. I’ll keep making adjustments and try and work out how to
speed up the process. Something. I dunno. You better go. The President is
waiting for us. For you. Go and save what's left of humanity, huh?” You
flick on the security camera system and pan around the hallway.
“Looks like any of the zombies that were here have
moved on,” you snigger, attempting to stifle your own bad joke, but then break
down into fits of hysterical laughter.
Madge slaps you across the face—except it's an
oversized mitt thumping your fishbowl face helmet.
“Oh, grow up. What is it about shit and farts
that boys never grow out of?”
You collapse with more laughter, gasping for air in
your hazmat suit.
“Later. Keep your hazmat suit on. The place is
contaminated. Lord knows when or if the cleanup will start. Keep on geeking.”
You knock ham sized fists together, repeating your
childhood motto.
She saunters out of the lab door. You watch her till
the suit disappears up the hallway. The silence buzzes in your ears as the
light in the corner of the room continues to blink. You see her helicopter make
its way across the sky.
The hazmat suit is cumbersome as you attempt to perch
on the lab stool. Your oversized fingers are clumsy, and it's not long before
you consider taking the whole lot off so you can start to pull one of the
Environauts apart and explore every component. You have no idea what else to
do. Here seems as safe a place to hang out and wait until the shit storm
blows over.
A buzzer sounds as the corner light slows its blink.
You stare at it and as moments pass; the blink eventually fades to a continual
beam. The buzzer stops and a door unlatches. You stand and go over to the door,
not remembering having seen it before. As you approach you realise that it had
been concealed within the texture of the wall, and only as it opens that the
outline reveals its position.
You flush with anger and indignation. This was your
lab, damn it. Who the hell had hidden doors leading off into the unknown in your
own lab? You turn the door handle. The space behind it is lit with floor
lights and appears to be a large storage room. As you step inside, general
lighting is automatically turned on to reveal rows of cages of now deceased,
rotting animals. You are glad you hadn’t taken the hazmat suit off, but gag at
the thought of what the smell might be like.
Dogs, cats, rats and squirrels slump inside their
cages. Most are surrounded by puke and shit. Your heart squeezes at the sight
of these helpless creatures, who have obviously died in a great amount of pain
and suffering. Your head spins, wondering where in the process animal
testing had a place in your facility. You sadly realise you have been
disconnected from the research unit for over a year, and anything could have
been passed by you to sign and you’d not really taken any notice—another reason
Madge should have been the CEO and not you. She would never have allowed animal
testing.
A rattle in the corner shakes you from your
depression. Your heart skips. Something is still alive. Perhaps you can do some
sort of good today.
Crouched in one of the larger cages sits an emaciated
orangutan. Its orange hair sticks out at right angles from its bony body. It
looks up at you with its intelligent, pleading eyes. He gingerly puts out his
hand through the bars. You hold back a tear and reach over to touch it,
entranced by the gentle moment of trust.
The ape quickly grasps your wrist and pulls you toward
the cage. Its other limbs thrust out of the cage and grab hold of your suit.
Your feet scrap against the metal flooring, sliding and finding no purchase as
you are pulled in.
The ape grins and peels your helmet off. You try to
hold your breath, but are at last forced to take a deep breath, gagging at the
putrid smell of death and feces. The orangutan's lips pucker towards you as a
dribble of brown trickles down its face. Your struggle renews as you realise
that it is dying from the same virus affecting all the zombies. It bares its
teeth. You scream, “But you’re a vegetarian! Everyone knows that.”
The orangutan's mouth covers your scream. A mixture of
vomit and shit warmed by the body gushes from the ape's mouth into yours. You
feel its arms and legs tighten around you and your are slowly crushed against
the bars of the cage. You feel your organs bursting as blood pours from your
ears and eyes. You die screaming, clutched in the strong arms of a giant orange
ape.
