Billy gave it a solid kick, and it staggered backward, still cohesive, still squealing, the sound piercing in the small room. He didn't know if the gas alone was enough, and wasn't going to wait and see. He flipped the lighter open and spun the wheel, holding the roll of toilet paper over the flame that sputtered to life. A second later, it was aflame.
Billy jumped out of the stall and dodged around the shrieking monster. As soon as he was past, he pivoted and threw the flaming roll of paper. It hit the leech-man just below its breastbone—and the squealing cry intensified for one horrible, deafening second as flames roared over him, enveloping him, before he collapsed into a thousand burning pieces. A black, burning puddle took shape on the tile floor, the tiny cries dying out in a matter of seconds.
A few straggling leeches crawled away from the fire, but they were disorganized, randomly sliding up the walls, slithering past his feet. Billy backed away from them, from the bubbling, dying fire, shoving the lighter back in his pocket as he neared the door.
Back in the hall, he took a deep breath, blew it out, and reached for the radio. He no longer cared what Rebecca's plans were; they were going to regroup, ASAP, and get the hell out of this place if they had to dig through the walls with their bare goddamn hands.
December 4th
When we first started, I had my doubts—but tonight, we celebrate. We finally did it, after all this time. Were calling the new construct virus Progenitor, Ashford's idea, but I like it. We'll begin testing immediately.
March 23rd
Spencer says he's going to start a company specializing in pharmaceutical research, maybe branch into drug manufacture. As always, he's the businessman of our group. His interest in Progenitor is primarily financial, it seems, but I'm not going to complain. He wants to see us succeed, which means he ll keep us well funded; as long as he's writing checks, he can do what he likes.
August 19 th
Progenitor is a marvel, but its applications are still so unsure. Just when we think we have the amplification rate documented, when we have a half dozen tests all showing the same results, everything falls apart. Ashford is still banking on working the cytokine numbers, coming at it backward, but he's dreaming. We need to keep looking.
Spencer keeps asking me to be the director of his new training facility Maybe ifs because of the business, but he's becoming intolerably pushy. In any case, I'm considering it. I need a place to
November 30th
Damn him. “let's have lunch, James,” he says, old comrades and fond memories. It's bullshit. He wants Progenitor ready, now. His “friends” in their White Umbrella clubhouse, with their ridiculous spy games for the rich and jaded— they want something exciting to play with, to auction off, and they don't want to wait for it. Fools. Spencer thinks that this will all come down to money but he's wrong. That's not what any of this is about, not anymore; I don. 't know that it ever was. I have to strengthen my own position, guard my queen, so to speak, or I could be steamrolled.
September 19th
At last, at last! I engineered a plasmid with leech DNA and then recombined it with Progenitor— and it's stable! It was the breakthrough I've been counting on. Spencer will be happy damn him, though I'll only let on that some progress has been made, not how much, not how I've named it after him, my own private joke. I'm calling it T, for Tyrant.
October 23rd
I can't think ofthem as human beings. They're test subjects, that's all, that's all. I knew the research would have to come to this someday, I knew it and—and I didn. 't know it would be this way.
I must keep my focus. The T-virus is magnificent; they, these subjects should be honored to experience such perfection. Their lives pave a road to a higher awareness.
Test subjects. That's all Pawns. Sometimes, pawns must be sacrificed for the greater good.
January 13th
My pets have been progressing. With their own DNA in the recombinant virus, I thought I could predict how infection would change them, but I was wrong. They've begun to colonize, like ants or bees. No individual is better than any other; they work together, a hive mind, coming together for a higher purpose. My purpose. I didn't see it at first, I was blind, but this is vastly more rewarding than the work on humans. I must continue those tests, however—I can't let on that I've discovered the true meaning, the value of T and what it represents. Spencer would try and take it, I know he would. My king is in the open.
February 11th
They've been watching me. I go into the lab, I see that things have been moved. They try and hide it, make everything look as it did, but I see. It's Spencer, damn his soul, he knows about my leeches, my beautiful hive, and this— this persecution won. 't end until one of us is dead. I can't trust anyone . . . Albert and William, perhaps, my castles, they believe in the work., but I may have to eliminate some ofthe others. The game draws to a close. He'll try for my queen, but the win will be mine. Checkmate, Oswell.
It was the last entry. Rebecca closed the journal and set it aside, next to the chess set that was centered on the desk. When she'd found the hidden cache, she'd thought the rudimentary maps had been the prize. There were two, one that showed what appeared to be three floors of the building's basement, including a few unmarked areas that perhaps led outside. The other seemed to be upstairs, a room labeled observatory next to a wide, open area marked breeding pool. But the small, leatherbound journal, dusty and crinkled with age—she didn't know how old, exactly, but one of the entries about working with the leeches had “1988” marked in an upper corner—had been the real discovery. Written by James Marcus, presumably, apparently the creator of the T-virus, the same virus that turned men into zombies, that had infected the train and probably half of Raccoon forest, if the recent murders were any clue.
Rebecca gazed blankly at the room's strange decor, the giant chessboard that dominated the floor, her mind working. He'd obviously been crazy by the end, his ramblings about chess, about the “true meaning” of the virus. Maybe running experiments on people had driven him over the edge.
Her radio signaled. She'd no sooner pushed receive before Billy's breathless voice blared in her
ear.
“Where are you? We need to regroup, now. Hello? Ah, over.”
“What happened? Over.”
“What happened is that I ran into another one of those leech-people in the can, and it very nearly whacked the crap out of me. Zombies we can handle, but these things—they eat bullets, Rebecca. We don't have enough ammo to hold more of them off. Over.”
“They've begun to colonize, like ants or bees.” Who was controlling them? Marcus? Or had they developed their own leader, a queen?
“Okay,” Rebecca said. She picked up the basement and observatory sketches she'd found, stuffed them into her vest as she stood up. After a second, she grabbed the journal, too, slipping it into a hip pocket. “Uh, meet me on the landing, where that picture of Marcus was. I may have found a way out, over.”
“On my way. Watch your back, over and out.”
She hurried out of the room and down the hall, moving quickly. She hadn't gotten far in her exploration, just an empty meeting room and then the office with the chess sets; thankfully, she hadn't run into anything hostile. Billy was right about the leech-men, there was no way they could handle more of those. In fact, it seemed likely that the only reason the collection of leeches on the train had stopped attacking them was because they were called off. She'd had vague hopes of staying in the nice, safe house until help arrived, but after reading Marcus's journal, hearing that the training facility was infected—they needed to get out.