The Writings of the Literarily Incompetent

Thursday

We went outside today. Not  a lot of movement outside, and no people.

Nearly rotting carcasses walking upright, eating anything in their path. They are the only thing I've ever been afraid of. The whites of their eyes completely red, holes in their cheeks and all over their body, exposing the raw flesh to the maggots that seem to be living inside them. I want to save them but I fear they are too far gone.

The smell still has me swallowing vomit and not swallowing a lot more.

When we were outside we ransacked every convenience store, grocery store and shop we could find. But nothing useful. Sweets and a few cans of beans should last us.

Cole and I walked back in to the lab and we heard something.

I felt the same as I did when I fist met Cole, my stomach turning in on itself, I'm going to throw up again.

Cole lead the way to the noise, with his hand outstretched towards me, signalling me to keep back.

I try to tell Cole I'm fine, but he gave me a hard stare, he was angry. His eyes were lit up with fire, he was more scary looking than an infected.

The next moment was a blur. Cole rushed forward, grabbed the nearest blunt object which happened to be a toaster, and ran into the hall.

He stopped at the door where the noises were coming from. He poised the toaster above his head waiting for the assailant to exit the room.

At the first sign of movement Cole struck the toaster down with all of his force, hitting a small child on the head and knocking him out cold.Blood spilled as some teeth hit the ground and shattered.

"Holy fucking shit Cole! You just killed a kid!"

"No I didnt. Don't be such a pussy, And help me carry him back to HQ."

I did as he said, he was looking quite feral. He carried the boy, who with a closer inspection seemed to be infected, nearing the last stages of infection.

"Well? Go ahead. Showtime." Cole smiled.

I knew what he wanted, I didn't think i could do it.

This is all my fault.

This was the only thought running through my head when I had grasped what had gone on in these 18 weeks.

The constant smell of rotting flesh was present nearly everywhere. The Militias have amassed in the city square, screams are heard from every direction as what could only be assumed as a conversion.

Without fail the nauseating stench of bile, rotting carcass and fecal matter crawls into your nostrils every time you’re even near a door.

It's spread as far west as Sudbury and as far east as Pontypool to my knowledge, but who knows how far? Some weren’t as lucky as I, from what I can tell it hit everyone at once.

I was safe in my little laboratory. Which is actually quite a miracle seeing as this started there in the first place. I always hated this place, the disappointment, scorn and depression. Now it's become my haven.

I work - worked - for a company named Tytan Laboratories, we specialized in genetic reconstruction. You may be asking, Why? And the answer is, to aid human kind, supposedly.

I have an overwhelming lack of awareness of what exactly goes on here, the employees are not to enter any floor but their own, even being a supervisor I can only go between 3 floors. Our work could range from making bioweapons that can destroy entire continents, to making bacon taste better. But in my lab, its curing cancer.

Yes, it is a large task, but I had 3,000+ staff there. And we were so close. We took the gene that allows for the immortal jellyfish to induce transdifferentiation, and inserted it into multiple rat fetus’ who we then infected with cancer via large amounts of radiation, although we had never made it to the radiation phase. It was thought that upon reaching the verge of death the rat would return to its pre-sexually mature stage and begin life again.

That was no where near the result.

It seemed as though the process was going well. 12 of the 46 rats had died in reaction to the slow acting poison. The poison was given to induce a state of near-death so the gene contained within the rats would activate. The remaining 34 were regressing rapidly. Everyone was so happy, We all celebrated our success immediately.

The Senior director for our lab was so thrilled we launched our human testing the next day. After all it was now or never, with threats from the government shutting us down for “shady activity” we had to produce something viable soon or more than 45,000 people are out of work. We injected a modified gene into 129 humans diagnosed with stage 4 cancer (one that would regenerate their internal cells rather than our entire body).

Soon after the human subjects were injected the rats started getting sick.They started to lose their hair, and we found blood spatter in their cages.Some got to the point where we found holes coming through their stomach and multiple teeth were lying around. They all died within a 4 hour time frame.

This worried our human testing operators. They believed that every human subject would die within 48 hours.They panicked, almost a quarter of the staff quit. They scrambled, nearly going mad while trying to find a way to reverse their cure. However it seemed that our project was over with.

I remember the director, the one who had made the call, standing in his office mixing something in a beaker sullenly. He was an elderly man. In his late sixties with a mop of dry, grey hair. His face sunken and his eyes barren, he barely looked at me when I asked him to look over my formula.

He had just finished crying. The dark streaks contrasted his fading pigment. I asked him what was wrong and he threw the beaker with some sort of maroon liquid at me. A glass shard had landed in my arm.

He apologized, saying he hadn’t known what had come over him, and he told me he had taken the serum as well.

Sunday

I decided to do some walking around today. This is the third week I've been stuck in my office since everything went awry. There have been riots outside, I've heard them; but they only lasted about 2 weeks, I hear only the occasional scream now. I've survived solely on potato chips and water. I seem to have lost the equivalent of a 2 month old in body fat during time.

I decided to walk out of project Rebirth, or what was left of it. Everyone left in quite the hurry.I went into the 7th floor's common area. overturned couches and broken coffee pots lay about. Even the fridge was missing, location: unknown. Although that could have been from the collapse of our company rather than our imminent demise

That's when I heard the footsteps.They were running, to or what from I've no clue, but they were in the building.

Tytan Labs was a secured building, you couldn't get in without an eye scan and finger print. The thought sent shivers down my spine.

I began to sweat; I heard a door slam, on this floor.

More footsteps. 

Another door.

I hid behind one of the suede loveseats that was closest to the wall. I heard it inch towards me. A metallic object, scraping against the tile, presumably a weapon. It whistled, like a call. He or she was beckoning me, it wanted to kill.

It- or he for that matter- finally came into view. He was a tall, lanky man. He looked as if he was once a miner, or another profession requiring large upper body strength, but that was long ago. He was carrying a metal pole. Dragging it, giving the occasional bounce against the uneven floor.

Worst of all, he was pale, with the same eyes the rats had.

I was poised in a crouching position, hands shaking and dizzy. I could hardly stay still my heart was beating so fast. 

As far as I could tell he was unaware of me. I took this opportunity to strike. I took what could have been my last breath and I ran full blast at him, knocking him into a wall. He dropped his pole and struck me in the side of the face with his fist.

I fell and he mounted me, posing for another bone shattering blow. 

I panicked. My one arm and two legs were useless. I knew that I surely would die if I did not act. 

So I acted.

As a child.

I grabbed his free arm, pulled it towards my face and bit as hard as I could into the flesh of my assailant. He shouted in pain, as one should when one suspects the ulna to be broken. But this was different.

It was as if I had set this man on fire and now he was burning alive. He was screaming, like a harsh animalistic screech . He was trying to say something, a word. I couldn't make it out, partly because the blood hadn't flown away from my head. He screamed until he had gotten to the elevator, then passed out.

At this point I had three options. Chop this thing's head off or tie him up for further study. And then the third option. I hadn't eaten for days. I was starving. But that too, I knew wasn't an option. Death was better than whatever that Infection did to you. 

  Wednesday

I decided to keep him. He's been my source of entertainment for the last couple days. I always bring the fire axe with me when I go into his room now. 

Over time I've noticed his pigment changing. looking fuller. I'm too scared to check his eyes for fear of him waking up (if he's not already dead) and finishing me off. My face hasn't healed by the looks of it either.

I've sat in this room for hours, trying to see the change I believe is happening. I'm starting to believe he isn't actually infected.

I'm considering going and killing him. 

He woke up today. Full pigmentation, breathing normally and his eyes; pure green. 

"H-hello ?"

"Mm. . Wharg? Whart do you warnt from me." He gurgled and spat out.

"What are you doing in this building?" I tried as assertively as I could.

"Look fucker," He gathered, " I walked in here looking for food. same as the rest of t-" He chortled a confused and painful moan and looked at me.

"What the fuck did you do to me you bastard!"

"I've no clue what you're implying. That I drugged you? No."

"So . . what? You jump me, knock me out and tie me up? Is this a joke?"

"Well, not exactly. There was a scuffle and I. .. seem to have bitten you a bit."

He looked down at his arm and there was my full imprint, about a 1/4 inch deep.

"You. . You bit me? What the fuck?  Why am I tied up?"

"Ah yes, you were infected with an altered gene, Strain-9 it's called."

"Strain-7 you mean." He cut in.

"No, Strain-9, it started here, so I would know." I retorted quite triumphantly. "It causes the recipient mass hysteria, hallucinations and the craving for flesh."

"Flesh? Like , other people flesh, like your flesh?"

"That was my thought." I cleared my throat "I had another thought as well. I think I may have a cure."

"To the . . Infection? You think that you can fix it? How? With what?"

"Well, I bit you earlier right?"

"Yes, thank you, asshole."

"And you were infected. But now you're not"

"So you're saying that you have the "cure" or whatever?"

"Well, not exactly, but I cured you."

"Wait a minute, if you do have it that means you can give it to other people."

"I wouldn't go that far."

"Why not. You have something that could save people."

"I don't really care much for people." I tried to say as sympathetically as possible.

"We could cure a whole village, and rebuild, you know?"

"I don't know"

"So you just want to live in this wasteland? Rotting away?"

"No, I mean eventually I thought of trying to find survivors and maybe. . But now?"

"If not now, when? Man up, untie me and lets get to saving the world!"

"It's not that simple, I can't just go around biting everyone. We don't even know how I can administer it."

"Look, I'll stay and help you, mostly 'cause this shit is crazy. But first thing is first. We need to find food."

"We have to go outside." I whispered.

"We have to go outside." He said.

"I'm Marcus by the way" I said.

Monday

Ever since I was 5 or 6 I loved control. A magnifying glass and an anthill was all I needed to feel powerful. I could will things to die and direct them where to go and do as I please even if it was to their demise. When I got bored with them I just got the hose, too bad I couldn't do the same with people.

I was never popular or very particularly liked. Maybe that’s why ants were the better companions. Ants never locked you in the janitor’s closet, or took turns spitting in your lunch, though occasionally they also bit back. That, and I could never control the people.

Maybe that’s why I took this job, control. Population control, economic control, controlling fear. Although I'd like to think I'm more noble than that. As long as I’m keeping record I might as well keep track of everything my life. Even my insufferable backstory.

Back when I was 9 years old I fell in love with science. Baking soda and vinegar bombs, sustaining small ecosystems, dragging my feet along the carpet just to shock my mom, all common occurrences in my house. As the years went by I started to get heavily involved, seeking answers to daily events. By 12 I could recite the 20 closest stars to our solar system. By 14 I could create slightly complex circuits, and by 16 I could do anything the average 12th grade AP student could. And when I was 17, my mom died of cancer.

Her last few years were a desperate attempt to cling on to what she barely had. My dad had left before I could remember and my mother had insisted that he had always loved us, there was just some sort of secret he couldn't share. She even convinced herself he was coming back.

My last memory is her laying in her hospital bed holding my nephew with a disengaged look on her face, she probably didn't even know who any of us were anymore. That’s why I went into biochemistry. That’s why I applied at Tytan. My whole life was dedicated to curing this terrifying disease. It’s a shame I dedicated my life to saving us when I basically kick-started the destruction of the human race, funny when I think about it now, though. 

Tuesday

The rats.

After we had killed and disposed of them, we were all uneasy. “What if’s” being thrown about constantly had everyone so on edge, for the next week production was up 20%. The test subjects had already lasted 4 days longer than expected. We had no choice.

We were already lying to them, we told them we were finding waiting on test results to better analyse how quickly our gene was progressing. It was the boss who confirmed our suspicions with his statement: “Get rid of them. I don’t want a trace, and do it quickly”.

We took all of them into a shower, one by one. Cut their throats with a box-cutter, a low groan emerged out of their lungs like someone getting the wind knocked out of them. We let them bleed out then snapped their cervical curve (as to remove synapses still firing off) and threw them into a compactor.

129 people, Slaughtered like poultry. 129 people, with families and children. 129 people, “mysteriously disappeared”. The removal crew promptly quit after the last person was removed, then they removed themselves right off the nearest bridge they could find.

All this, to prevent things going the same way with the rats. We had to make sure to not let what happened to the rats, happened to them. When the rats reawakened they weren't the same. Of course, they were still rats; vicious, nasty creatures. But not the same kind. There was genuine malice in the eyes of brothers and sisters alike.

In the first hour they would scratch the glass containment unit, and they wouldn't stop. Until their blood became an ever-fresh coating on the inside of their chamber, then they attacked each other. They attacked in packs on the weaker ones first. Biting and ripping of bits of fur, then skin, then flesh. They worked their way unto the eyes, pulling them out of the sockets, gnawing on the optic nerve. Unable to defend themselves having just filed their claws clean off. They disassembled each other until bones and unwanted organs remained.The only ones remaining were two. Then they stopped, occasionally trying to attack the other but to no avail.

 On Monday we found what was left of the rats, which were two torsos eating the other, seemingly in ecstasy. After not much debate we drowned the remaining two.

We received a dozen complaints for loud screeching coming from inside the lab (access was restricted on weekends), and found a brown film inside the glass. When we found the security tapes many of the staff threw up on the spot.  Most left, the only ones remaining were me, Al (the boss) and a couple guys from IT, all watching in disgust. This is when we decided to scrap Project Rebirth.