Chapter 4

Project IMMORTAL

 

As the trio stepped through the door, they were faced with a sight none of them expected. Instead of clean, white walls, they were faced with a grey, non-descript corridor. The paint was peeling off the walls, making it seem like it was hundreds of years old. But there was one thing about it that stood out over the rest.

 

Blood. Lot’s of it. Almost everywhere Nigel looked, he saw blood. It was pooling on the floor, lying in congealed patches, and even in bloody handprints along the wall. Soon after they stepped through the door, their noses were assaulted with a tidal wave of smells, most of it metallic, like copper.

 

“Ugh…I knew it was going to be messy, but this? This is just downright disgusting.” Tyray said, crinkling his nose in distaste.

 

“It was not like this when I last came here,” Luis replied. “These walls were clean…and dry.”

 

“Excuse me, ladies,” Nigel cut in obnoxiously. “We have a job to do. Luis, I want you watching our back. I’ll take point, Tyray stays in the middle.”

 

They walked along the corridor, and tried the door. It was locked , as they expected. Tyray kneeled down and attempted to pick the lock with his special kit.

 

“Hurry up, Tyray! It’s been five minutes already.” Nigel said, losing patience.

 

“Just wait, I’ll have this baby open in no time.” he replied, annoyed.

 

“Oh for God’s sake,” Nigel interjected after a few more minutes. “Let me handle this!”

 

He pushed Tyray aside, and stepped up to the door. Then he lifted his right foot back, and kicked it as hard as he possibly could.

 

The door didn’t budge.

 

Embarrassed, he slowly pulled his foot back. Luis and Tyray snickered silently, trying in vain to conceal their laughter. Nigel shot them a venomous glare. If looks could kill, both of them would be joining the blood stains on the floor. That was the last straw. Both of the soldiers burst out laughing, unable to conceal it any longer. Finally, Luis calmed down enough to step up to the door, pull out his M9, and shoot the handles and locks off.

 

“Or, you know, we could have just done that.” Nigel said, doing damage control.

 

“Oh? Then why didn’t you?” Tyray snickered before finally calming down. “I’ll scout ahead, you two await my signal. Stay right here.”

 

“Fine,” Nigel agreed. “Go through the door and give us the signal when it’s clear. We’ll stay right here and hide behind this door until it’s time.”

 

The tall soldier stepped through the large metal door…

 

…and into hell.

 

What he was seeing just didn’t compute. Tyray’s brain locked and his

arms turned to jelly, almost making him drop his weapon.

 

Beyond that door…was a colony. Not a colony of ragged, dirty survivors desperate for a ray of hope and a reason to keep on living, but instead he saw a colony of infected. Their numbers easily reached 1,000, enough to destroy any outpost. In the middle of the giant mass was a huge beast, resembling a deformed bear. It had split jaws, with one on each corner of its gaping mouth and razor sharp spikes jutting out from its arms, legs, and spine.

 

Tyray’s jaw dropped for a solid ten seconds. When he finally got his wits back together, he looked around and saw that he was standing on a catwalk, rising high above the colony. After some more investigating, he realized that he was in a huge auditorium, with the walls easily rising to 50 feet. The fall down to the bottom was mind numbing, causing him to back away from the edge.

 

“Uh…guys?” Tyray called. “I, uh…I think you should come see this.”

 

The two soldiers rushed through the opening, fearing the worst. When they saw what he was seeing, they were just as shell-shocked. Nigel’s knees buckled, causing him to hang on to the railing, for fear of falling. Luis’ eyes simply widened, and his mouth hung open in disbelief.

 

“Wha…what is this place? And what the hell is that ugly thing?” Nigel asked, pointing to the monster in the middle.

 

“I have no idea. Did you know about this, Luis?”

 

“This was definitely not here before,” he said quietly. “Keep your voice down, we don’t want them hearing us.”

 

“All I know is that the stakes just got that much higher. We need to find a way to kill all of those zombies, and our guns aren’t going to do the trick. Well, I’m sure something will pop up. Let’s just keep on moving.” Nigel replied, and gestured to the door on the far side.

 

They continued like this for quite some time, moving as a perfectly synchronized unit. Eventually, the trio reached a fork in the corridor, with a sign saying, “Left-Projects and Resources”. They turned left and came upon a stainless steel door. Nigel tried the handle, and saw it was obviously locked. He looked around until his eyes rested on a keypad, the numbers stained with blood.

 

“Damn it,” he said, disappointed. “I have a feeling that Project IMMORTAL is beyond this door, and all that’s stopping us is a code.”

 

“I have an idea. If I can get to the security room, I could plant C4 on the motherboard, destroying the need to use the Keypad.” Tyray said hopefully.

 

Nigel thought for a moment before commanding, “Do it, and hurry up.”

 

Tyray took off down the hall, looking for the security room. While he searched, Luis and Nigel took the time to check their weapons and equipment. Finally, after what seemed like a life time, Tyray came jogging back toward them.

 

“Well, I did it.” he said, out of breath.

 

“Why didn’t we hear a ‘boom’ then?” Nigel asked skeptically.

 

Tyray held up the detonator and replied, “Because I still have it. There’s a catch, though. And you’re not going to like it. Not one bit.”

 

Nigel gestured for him to go on.

 

He took a deep breath and continued, “Well, if I blow the motherboard, it’ll overload everything else.”

 

“So? Isn’t that what we want?”

 

Tyray glared at him for interrupting and said, “It also means it sets off the self destruct timer for the whole facility.”

 

Nigel’s eyes widened and he stared at him for a solid ten seconds.

 

“Nigel? You there?”

 

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I just zoned out and had this crazy thought that you said you wanted to set off the self-destruct timer while we were still inside.”

 

“I did.”

 

Nigel blinked three times before saying, “Look, Tyray. I know you want to get this mission done, but there’s no wa—“

 

“Just hear me out, alright?” Tyray cut in. “If I blow this, then we’d have about 30 minutes to get the hell out of here. You think we can transfer the data that fast?”

 

Luis held up a USB chip.

 

“Unbelievable. We’re in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and USB’s are still the item of choice.” Tyray joked.

 

No one laughed.

 

“Go ahead. Blow it. But we need to hurry or else there’ll be nothing left of us to bring the data back.” Nigel commanded.

 

Tyray held up his detonator and clicked the trigger. For a moment nothing happened, until all three soldiers heard a muffled explosion. A wave of kinetic energy rounded the corner and blew toward them, sucking the air out of their lungs. An alarm horn started blaring, and red lights flashed throughout the corridor. They took a moment to gather their wits, then rushed through the door and stepped inside.

 

On the other side was a large room, with computers lining the walls and a raised platform in the center. Above the platform was a table with holograms floating above it. Nigel and Tyray rushed to the center, with Luis close behind. Luis turned around and stuck the USB stick in a port on the left side. He stepped up to the table; arranged files and documents like a professional, and entered a password. A slot on the far side of the room popped open with a loud click, and Tyray rushed to it. When he got there, he saw it was the implants and took them in his arms.

 

The download for the blueprints started, and Luis started looking through the files for anything of value. Suddenly, the trio heard a roar and looked at the door. A zombie popped its head out, only to lose it from multiple shots from Tyray’s M60.

 

“Where are the zombies coming from? They shouldn’t be here!” Nigel yelled over the alarms, shaken.

 

“When I blew the C4, it must have opened the doors in the auditorium, too!” Tyray replied, shooting another zombie.

 

“Oh. Then how did they get he—“

 

“Uh…guys? I found something you might want to know,” Luis interjected, panic creeping into his voice. “This isn’t just any old facility. We’re standing in the facility where the infection started.”

 

Nigel’s jaw dropped, as did Tyray’s. They stood there for a moment, before resuming shooting. The zombies started flooding the door now, eager for a bite of their first meal in a very, very long time.

 

“I got it. The download’s done.” Luis said, way too calm for the situation.

 

“How do we get out?” Tyray asked without looking. “There’s too many of them to get through the door.”

 

In response, Luis went back to the table and entered another password on the holograms. On the far side of the room, a door swung open, previously concealed.

 

“I found us a way out! It leads back to the hangars, but in a different one this time.” Luis finally replied.

 

Tyray holstered his M9, for his M60 had long run out of ammo and scooped up the implants. Nigel slung his XM8 over his shoulder and Luis plucked the USB stick out. The three soldiers sprinted to the exit on the far wall and ducked inside. Once they were in, Tyray planted a block of C4 by the opening and primed the timer.

 

“What are you doing?” Nigel asked with disbelief.

 

“We need to get away, and those zombies’ will tear us to shreds unless we slow them down.”

 

They sprinted farther down the tunnel and rounded a corner until Tyray finally clicked the trigger. A loud explosion echoed down the tunnel, making their ears pop. The trio stopped and looked back. No zombies came running toward them, meaning they were safe.

 

“How did you know the passwords, Luis?” Nigel asked while they ran.

 

“When you train here, you learn some things.” he replied vaguely.

 

Finally, they reached a large door resembling a vault. Tyray and Nigel twisted the handle, and it popped open, revealing them to be in a hangar directly left of where they crashed. Luckily, there was a lone open roof Humvee still parked in position. After a quick check, it was shown to be undamaged and in perfect condition.

 

“I’m driving.” Tyray said, stepping into the driver’s seat.

 

“You don’t have keys, though.” Nigel replied, jumping in the turret.

 

He looked down to see Tyray twisting two wires together beneath the steering wheel. The engine revved to life and Luis sat in the passenger seat, pulling out his rifle.

 

“Who needs keys, anyways?” he said cockily.

 

Suddenly, the doors in front of them started opening. Through the crack, they saw that the huge monster in the auditorium was pushing it, with the help of 100 or so more zombies.

 

“Why aren’t the guns shooting the infected?” Nigel asked, confused.

 

“I probably disabled the automated firing system too. Sorry.” Tyray replied, embarrassed.

 

“Then how do we get out?”

 

“Simple. We drive.”

 

With that, Tyray gunned the engine and blasted through the doors. He veered toward the gate and mowed down zombies left and right while Nigel did his part with the .50 cal. They heard a blood chilling roar and turned around to see that the monster was chasing them, moving impossibly fast. As Nigel was about to start shooting it, he felt a hand touch his arm. He panicked and turned around to see Luis staring at him.

 

“Don’t worry about that thing. I got it.” he said confidently.

 

Nigel shrugged and aimed at the zombies around it. Luis shifted in his seat so his butt rested on the dashboard. He pulled out his rifle, rested the barrel on the head rest, and fired of two shots.

 

None of them hit.

 

The monster was getting closer now, about 50 feet. At this rate, it would catch up to them very soon.

 

Luis took a deep breath, relaxed his muscles, and took in everything around him: the bump of the Humvee, wind direction, speed, bullet travel time, and finally, the monster itself. He focused, held his breath, sighted, and fired. The large 12.7mm shot tore through its neck, directly severing the spine and killing the beast instantly. Right as he did that, the large truck burst through the fenced gate, made a turn, and was away.

 

They did it. They had escaped.