The Undead Shuffling Of The Zombie Island Scientists! (3/3)
Part 1
Part 2
“The antidote’s in this room,” Ambrose said, voice still quiet, but he points at the place and looks coherent enough to butcher their way into the place. “I don’t doubt there’s zombies and plenty of obstacles in our way, but we can deal with it. It’ll take some time to release the antidote into the air, since it’s probably still in serum form, but I can fix that. Hopefully. It may take some time, which is why you’ll be heading for the radio room. I think that’s what it was called, at least. DG has plenty of technical know-how to get it up and running.” He pointed to the room, which was comparatively close to the lab.
“And then we just what, wait for someone to come help?” DG asked.
Ambrose shrugged. “That’s the plan. But at soon as we release the antidote, we should have plenty of traumatized ex-lab workers to deal with.”
“They’ll be like you,” Raw said, which Ambrose seemed to simply ignore, checking over all the weapons strapped to him instead.
Cain cleared his throat, uncomfortable but knowing if he didn’t step up, nobody would. Ambrose had been wearing himself thin even before they’d gotten into the security room. “Alright. Everyone strapped in and ready to go?”
“Ready,” Raw agreed. DG adjusted her gun, shifting her vest slightly in the process, and nodded. Cain didn’t even bother waiting for Ambrose’s answer; the man was always ready to fight zombies, and practically half-zombie anyway.
The biggest problem with the room was the distinct lack of any view of the hallway. As far as Cain knew, the hall was packed with them, and if there was anything flammable that a bullet could possibly hit, whatever made the zombies explode could send the building sky-high, underground or not. But, you’d never know until you looked. He took a breath. “Alright. On three, ready?”
“Yep,” Ambrose said, Maude gnawing on her gag over his shoulder. He opened the door and launched himself into the same super-zombie sprint Cain had seen that first day on the beach. “Just get to the radio!” he called over his shoulder.
Three bodies shifted their way into view, almost idly twisting around a corner before catching sight of them all. Ambrose’s free hand reached down to his thigh and pulled one of the machetes out, decapitating one of them in a sickeningly smooth motion, and then he ran onwards as the body thudded to the tile floor.
Helpful, but still not exactly reassuring.
He swung his gun up and aimed for the lead zombie, taking his time. They were moving into a trot, straight down the hallway and zeroing in on them with hungry faces and dead eyes. Nothing but moving targets.
“You remember how to shoot that thing?” Cain asked.
DG swallowed. “I sure as hell remember why I need to shoot it, does that-”
One of Raw’s throwing knives found itself nice and cozy in the lead zombie’s neck, just far enough off for the thing to still be moving, even if it was stumbling in circles and pawing at the air. Cain hesitated long enough to glance at the man and see the grim, determined look on Raw’s face before he switched targets and fired at the second zombie. DG seemed to have picked up with the program, finishing off the first zombie with what had sounded like an entire clip while Cain sent round after round through the zombie’s neck until it fell.
“They’ll have heard that,” Cain said wryly, and started moving forward. Raw grabbed his knife, and they were off, marching fast and watching their surroundings as intently as they could.
“Why’d he leave us?” DG whispered as they turned a corner. There was the patter of footsteps down the opposite corridor. “I would feel a lot safer if we had the experienced half-zombie with us.”
“I’m sure he has a good reason,” Cain said. “Because if he doesn’t I’m going to see if he explodes too.”
“He does,” Raw said calmly, looking down at the brass knuckles he’d taken after Ambrose’s suggestion. “So did everyone else.”
Cain thought back to that journal, how the pyre had blown another man up along with the zombie, and shuddered. Not how he wanted to go. Definitely not how he wanted to go.
“You don’t think any of them escaped the VAPORS?” DG asked, only to stop as the sound of footsteps came again, this time those of slow, high-heeled shoes. She glanced at Cain and pointed to her gun, face turning the gesture into a question. He grit his teeth for a moment before nodding, pulling his own out and turning the corner.
Leona looked at him, head tilting to the side, and Cain had no idea whether or not she was a zombie.
The others in the building had been eerily clean, most likely thanks to the lack of dirt to roll around in, and Leona looked painfully unhealthy but almost like she’d recently taken a shower. What had been short blonde hair in the recordings was now down to her shoulder blades, and her eyes were…strange. They were like Ambrose’s when other zombies were around, but more distant.
If she wasn’t a zombie, that meant she’d been down here without seeing the sun for over two years, which would probably mess anybody up. Then again, there were windows in some places, so-
The way she suddenly crouched on the floor was surprising. Seeing her do that only to launch herself into a ridiculous frog-jump that landed him on the ground with her thighs around his neck (and wow, that was strange and hilariously, disturbingly nostalgic) was nothing short of heart-attack-inducing. Her palm rose up and slammed against his nose, undoubtedly breaking it, and Cain shouted for all he was worth before biting onto his own lip to avoid making more noise and dragging the entire zombie army over. In a heartbeat, Raw was on her, barreling the woman to the floor and hitting her head hard enough against the surface that, zombie or not, she would be out of it for a while.
Raw tossed her over his shoulder, looking very, very uncomfortable. “For Ambrose.”
“I can see why you were going to be allowed to stick around,” DG said a bit weakly. “Thought you were some kind of tarot card infomercial psychic?”
“I was,” Raw said, the words calm and full of regret but without even the smallest trace of an apology in them. He paused for a moment, smiling slightly. “Want a prediction?”
“No,” Cain said, firm and uneasy as they started back down the hall. “I don’t want to start planning for something that might not happen.”
“I’m rarely wrong,” he said.
“Okay, are we going to survive?” DG asked.
“Mostly,” Raw said.
“I can see why you’re rarely wrong if that’s the sort of answers you give,” Cain muttered.
-Attention all occupants of Soal Island Laboratory- Ambrose’s voice spoke up over the intercom, and Cain nearly shot the nearest speaker. -If you are a zombie, I’m sorry, and hopefully I’m going to be fixing that soon. If you’re Cain or DG or Raw, I mostly cleared the way to the radio so head over as fast as you can, because there’s a lot of zombies in here. And if there’s somehow anyone else in here, don’t worry, this will all be over soon and everything will be okay.-
“He doesn’t actually believe it’s going to be okay, does he?” DG asked, eyes wide.
Cain let out a disgruntled sigh. “Hell if I know what the mad scientist is thinking.” He shook his head. “But if he cleared the way, let’s take advantage of it.”
“Remember the directions?” Raw asked.
“I sure do,” DG said firmly, and moved into a jog, the boys not far behind her. They hurried past beheaded corpses and zombies with knives still sticking out of their windpipes, but ignored the gore as best they could. It was necessary, for God’s sake. Kill or be eaten and turn into one of them. It was self-defense in every way, no matter how gruesome a scene it left behind.
The door was, thankfully, labeled. They would have found it, of course, but it was easier this way.
“Get on the radio and get help,” Cain said, and after a minimal amount of scuffling he managed to retrieve Leona from Raw. “I’m going to deliver her to Ambrose, see whether she’s a zombie or not.”
“She attacked. She’s a zombie,” DG stated, already heading to the computers and radio equipment. “But be careful.”
Cain nodded, and slipped out the door.
---
It seemed strange that Ambrose had left the door unlocked up until he realized that really, who would come after him?
“I’m kind of busy, you know,” Ambrose called from where he was shifting things around on a counter. “Vaporizing compounds without altering them takes-”
“I’m delivering Leona,” Cain said, and dropped her slumped form into a nearby chair. He could see Maude twitching in a nearby cage that looked fit for a very large dog - one of many - and considered putting Leona in another to join her. “We couldn’t tell if she was a zombie or not. Her eyes are like yours.”
“So are the zombies’ eyes,” Ambrose said, shoulders tense but not looking over. “Just…put her in the glass chamber over there. The code’s 1208.”
Cain frowned. “You don’t want to even look at her?”
“Just put her in the box, Cain,” Ambrose said, and with a shrug, he did. Leona was situated easily enough against the glass, and the door slid shut and air-tight behind him.
Ambrose still wouldn’t look at him.
“You’re not telling us something.”
“I’m not telling you a lot of things,” Ambrose stated, doing something with a tube of suspiciously silver liquid. “You should go back to the radio room with the others. Get away from Soal as fast as you can.”
“Because we’re not supposed to be here?” Cain asked, settling himself in the same chair Leona had been in. “Sorry, Glitch, but you’re not supposed to be here either.”
“My name’s Ambrose. And if you didn’t notice, I’m mostly one of them already. I belong here.”
“You really do believe that, don’t you?” Cain stared at his back. “God, you honestly think you’re mostly zombie.”
Ambrose’s hands slammed down onto the counter. “I’m the reason all of this even started!” He turned to glare at Cain, his eyes far more human than he’d probably ever admit. “I’m the original zombie. The only reason I’m not eating any of you is I’m too used to being human!”
“You’re used to being human because you are human, Glitch.”
“Ambrose.”
“Glitch.” Cain’s gaze was firm and steady. “Ambrose died two and a half years ago. Glitch is the part of you that survived. The part that always survives.”
“The part that can’t remember anything unless there’s an undead coworker nearby!”
Cain shook his head. “Just finish up, and we can talk afterwards.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said, but turned back to his work.
---
It was hard keeping track of the time when there was no sunlight and all the clocks in the room were still flashing 12:00 incessantly, so he really couldn’t tell how long it’d been since Leona went unconscious when she stood up and stared out of the glass. Which, really, was the creepiest thing. She just stood there, feet shoulder-width apart, and stared at something Cain couldn’t see.
“Glitch?” Cain asked.
“I know,” Ambrose said, and kept on working without a glance towards either of them.
---
-Hey, guys?- DG’s voice sounded over the intercom. Cain’s eyes snapped open, wide and surprised he’d actually fallen asleep. -I’m just going to assume you’re hearing this. Anyway, we’re up and running. It sounds like we might be getting somewhere pretty soon on the making contact front. Hope your side of things is coming along well. And fast.-
“You really should go back to them,” Ambrose said, doing something with equipment that by now Cain wasn’t even trying to guess what it was. It reminded him of a toaster in some ways, though. A cruel and unusual toaster.
Cain frowned at him but didn’t bother launching into the same old argument they’d always end up having, looking at the still-stationary Leona and the still-caged Maude-
He jerked out of the chair, hand on his gun. “Where’s Maude’s gag?”
“I have it,” Ambrose said, quiet and calm, and pointed to where the stick sat on the counter. “Don’t touch it, and don’t go near that cage.”
“I have to go past if I want to get to Leona,” Cain pointed out.
“Why would you need to get to Leona?” Ambrose asked, voice strangely blank.
And for the first time, Leona watched them.
---
Cain can practically feel Ambrose wavering. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been in here, but he does know Ambrose hasn’t stopped working for a single moment. By now he has a small canister of something that he’s still somehow tweaking with, but even the man’s hair looks tired.
He knew it was a bad idea, but he asked anyway. “Why don’t you take a break?”
“I’m almost done,” Ambrose mumbled back, and the words are slurred enough that Cain stood up and walked over to get a good look into his eyes. They still had that eerie pale tinge to them, but they mostly looked brown and exhausted, as if all the time and fighting had finally crashed into him. It didn’t keep his hand from being batted away though, and Ambrose turned back to his work. “I need to finish as soon as possible and you know it.”
“Then multi-task,” Cain argued. “I know you probably have something to do with that antidote that doesn’t require constant attention-”
Glass shattered behind them, and Cain had his revolver out before even realizing what had happened. The only thing that kept him from firing was Ambrose still standing in front of him, looking tense and tired and furious.
Leona stared at them with cruel inhuman eyes, mouth moving carefully even with her lips caught in a snarl. Her legs were shaking, one of her battered high heels held loosely in her bloody left hand, and there was something oddly calculating about her gaze, as if she was calculating body mass and how hard she’d need to twist to break their necks.
“Leona, I have to,” Ambrose snapped, sounding more like an irritated brother than a man staring down a zombie coworker. “They’ll kill and eat them, and they don’t have any part in this! They’re not supposed to be here, and that’s why I’m making sure they leave-”
“It goes on,” she said, voice hoarse and shaking. She sounded like she’d been shot and they were the last words she’d ever get out.
“No, Leona! It doesn’t go on!” Ambrose shouted back, pointing vehemently at Maude, who was biting at the cage which held her. “We did that, Leona! We did this to them, and I’m not going to make them suffer any more than they already have, work be damned-”
The only thing that saved Cain then and there was having raised a toddler with a bad habit of throwing things when in a temper. It was nothing but instinct and a mild case of annoyance when he swerved to the left, and Leona’s single shoed foot screeched against the tile floor as she recovered from her impossible jump. Ten feet, maybe fifteen, and he hadn’t even seen her move. He sure as hell heard her now, snarling and doing her damndest to get away from Ambrose’s undoubtedly painful grasp on her wrists.
“I won’t let you,” Ambrose whispered sharply, teeth grinding against one another with the force of keeping her pinned down. “Cain, the antid-”
Leona’s bare foot slammed into Ambrose’s chest in a gruesome display of flexibility and the man went down hard, Leona not even stopping to check if he would stay down. Cain wasn’t so sure she wasn’t a bona fide zombie with insanity clouding her unnatural eyes, but he didn’t have time to really analyze her sanity considering the woman was heading straight for him with a feverish determination in her eyes.
Cain pulled the revolver out, aiming it at her with hands he’d admit shook a little. If she was strong enough to break through a glass container like that one with nothing but a shoe, he didn’t think even shooting her straight in the spinal cord would save him. “Don’t come any closer,” he said, loud and as firm as he could.
She stopped walking, instead staring straight into his eyes, light glinting off her pupil. “It goes on,” she croaked.
“No,” Cain said, jaw tight. “We release this and you can go outside, see the sun, breathe fresh air-”
Her leg snapped out, and Cain lost his grip on the gun as her shin connected with his wrist. At this rate, he wasn’t that surprised when she managed to catch the revolver out of the air, either. He’d simply accepted the fact almost-zombies knew kung fu. It wasn’t like they’d had anything else to do for over two years, after all. One more jerk of her knee and Cain was on the ground too.
Unimpeded, she stepped towards the counter, legs oddly unstable for someone who’d just kicked him in the chin. His gaze travelled right along with hers, down to the knife planted firmly in her calf.
“Stop,” Ambrose said, breath wheezy and face pained as he got back to his feet. “Don’t you want to see how it ends, Leona? It’ll still be going. The experiment will continue, just with newer factors. We have over two years of data on this, for god’s sake, it’s time to add in a variable-”
Leona gripped the hilt of Ambrose’s throwing knife and pulled it out without even glancing down, head tilted awkwardly and mouth caught in a snarl. “It goes on. It goes on and on, and on, and on and on and onandonandon,” she rasped, dropping the knife to the floor and moving towards Ambrose, slow and viciously intent on her quarry.
Ambrose’s desperation shattered right along with the hope that Leona was somehow still sane.
Cain was as quiet as he could manage when he teetered his way to his feet, still crouched slightly behind the table as Ambrose’s back hit the wall. Leona was limping, but she still managed to have a lethal, killing grace to her every move.
Maude screamed in the cage.
He ignored it as best he could, looking over the antidote and wishing he remembered a damn thing from chemistry other than a third of the periodic table and how everything turned into a dark goo when you got into organic chemistry, and that he’d only passed thanks to Adora being his lab partner, which had been how they met actually, and she’d always been too good for him-
“Press the blue button!” Ambrose shouted from where he was in a fistfight with his own ex-lab partner. Cain blinked, tuning back into the present. Ambrose was bleeding badly from a cut on his temple, but from the disgustingly unnatural angle he could see, Leona had a broken arm but was luckily ignoring Ambrose in favor of repeating onandonandon as if she’d die if she stopped. He ducked under a punch only to narrowly avoid her bad leg. “Cain! Press the blue button on the canister! It’s good enough to let into the air and if I can’t get over there she’s going to-”
Cain didn’t need more of an explanation than that. Ambrose kept talking, Maude kept screaming, Leona kept muttering, and Cain scrounged over the hectic lab counter until he found what looked like a white plastic cup attached to the surface below. There was something whirring around inside of it, and since he couldn’t see anything other than the fan going around and around, he figured that probably meant the antidote was done enough for release.
Well, that and Ambrose’s near-screaming for him to push the blue button.
Frantic fingers danced over the container. Red button on the left, two yellow buttons beneath it, a green button on the right side, and there on the back stood a blue button.
“-on and on and on and on! It goes on! It goes on and on and on-”
Maude’s scream echoed through the room, having finally gnawed her way through one of the bars of her cage.
- Guys! We’ve got someone on the line, and they’re sending a helicopter out, say they’re going to even get us in contact with Azkadellia-
“PUSH IT,” Ambrose screamed, one of the knives out as he did his best to fend Leona off, obviously losing the battle.
Cain’s fist slammed against the button, and white mist burst into the air with enough force that Cain was on the ground one more time, eyes watching Leona and Ambrose fall to the ground with him. Her face was painfully inhuman, twisted up in pain. All Ambrose did was smile as he sagged down to the floor and shut his eyes, Cain’s following barely a second after as the antidote tore through the air ducts, just like the original VAPORS had so very long ago.
---
Cain woke up bloody and dusted with a fine sheen of white powder clinging to his maroon Hawaiian shirt, the lights flickering slightly. He could hear screams outside, heard shouting and banging and sobbing, heard doors moving faster than their stubborn joints were meant to after all this time. It was bedlam outside the lab’s door, but in Ambrose and Leona’s laboratory everything was deathly quiet.
It seemed that every time he woke up on this goddamned island, it was proportionally more difficult to get up and start moving like a human being. His feet slid slightly on the floor, slick and streaking permanent stains when he moved.
He caught sight of Maude, now nothing more than a lifeless lunch lady with dead, painfully human eyes hunched against the tiny hole in the door she’d made while still a zombie. Her arms were, of course, still missing, only now she bled, the blood pooling under her in a horrific puddle big enough that Cain had no idea how long he’d been out of it. He looked at her for just a few moments before he had to turn away, bile burning his throat as he scuffled over towards the lab counter.
Like he’d expected, everything had exploded. The only way anyone was getting any more VAPORS or antidote was by going straight to Ambrose or Leona’s brains, if he’d correctly judged them to be incredibly paranoid bastards.
Cain turned towards said bastards. They were crumpled on the floor, Ambrose’s expression tired and strangely content as he lay against the wall, Leona’s eyes dark and furious and dim and human with her limbs twisted and her body sprawled in a lazy heap against the floor. He shuffled over, cautiously crouching near them.
“Glitch,” he whispered, eyes intent on Leona in case she heard him too. The sounds from behind the door had changed, banging and an almost roaring echo of shouts replacing the unorganized bedlam from before. “Glitch, wake up, we have to go.”
When Glitch didn’t move, Cain let out an irritated huff and shook his shoulder. The only response he received was Glitch’s head rolling forward, followed by his torso bending him in half at the waist. A bright red stain Cain knew far too well was spreading from a place on his back, meaning that the man was bleeding so much that it was even seeping through his coat.
“Oh hell no,” Cain grit out, and stripped the coat off as the shouting increased. A lump formed in his throat when he pried the sticky fabric away only to reveal an almost entirely red shirt that had once been white. “This isn’t happening, Glitch, it isn’t happening, you’re going to be fine.”
He remembered what the videos had said. He’d been stabbed in the back and miraculously revived by the VAPORS and an insane coworker before any of this even started, and the only thing that’d stopped him from being an all-out zombie had been the passing resemblance to the antidote Leona had given him. And then he’d been hit with the VAPORS again, right along with everyone else in the building, and now that he’d been subjected to the actual antidote, the VAPORS were gone and he was dead. Back to square one, and Cain didn’t doubt for a moment that the man had known it would happen.
Glitch had been the first person to protect him since Adora. Now, he was the second person to die to save him.
Someone was banging on the door, but Cain ignored them, stumbling to his feet and making his way over to the counter. There had to be some VAPORS left, something to use to bring him back. He ignored the look that’d been on the man’s face when he died, because nobody was dying for him again, nobody was going to die period. His hands scrambled across the area, reading labels and slamming the containers back down even when he heard Leona’s first rattling breath as she woke up, bordering on a scream.
The door burst open but Cain ignored it, ignored the hands that grabbed him and pulled him away, ignored the unfamiliar female voice shouting his name into his ear, ignored it all until a needle pushed into his arm and he grudgingly sunk into unconscious, a bottle of nothing but saline dropping from unfeeling fingers.
---
Cain woke up angry enough that he didn’t notice he’d squeezed the metal sides of his hospital bed into the exact shape of his fist until Raw’s hand gently pried his own off them.
“It takes some getting used to,” DG said quietly in a chair to his left, and from the broken pieces of porcelain that looked like they’d been a coffee mug a few seconds ago, he guessed he wasn’t the only one to suddenly have super-strength. She cleared her throat uncomfortably, Raw taking his seat next to her without a word. “Azkadellia said it’s the after-effects of the antidote. It’s why Glitch and Leona were so…” She grasped for the word.
“Powerful,” Raw supplied, looking at the tile floor before shifting his gaze to Cain. “He’s dead.”
“I know,” Cain said as calmly as he could manage. From the sympathetic looks he got from them, he figured they could fill in the I saw him die without him needing to say it out loud. He took a deep breath. “The zombies?”
“Also went superman,” DG said. “They’re confused, terrified, extremely traumatized, but human aside from running fast and being able to punch through walls.” She hesitated. “And we’re…kind of a bit more super than them.”
“They rank as enhanced, but you three are very close to super,” a woman said quietly from the doorway. She had long black hair tied in an elaborate ponytail on the top of her head and a stylish black suit with a golden shirt underneath it. She also had bags under her eyes, and her eyes continually flicking over to DG told him her name just as easily as an introduction. “DG seems to think she might be telekinetic, and her friend might be telepathic.”
Cain frowned at her. “Glitch didn’t have any ridiculous super-powers.”
Azkadellia’s smile was bittersweet. “I guess you never saw him run. Satellites measured him at thirty-four miles an hour on the beach last year. I can only imagine what he’ll be able to do on pavement.”
His hands clenched into fists that he was careful to keep against his thighs. “You mean to tell me you’ve been watching him all this time, and never thought to get him off Soal?”
“If we’d gotten him off the island, he could have infected someone and we’d have had zombies on the mainland. I couldn’t take that risk, no matter how badly I wanted to save him-”
“Wait, did you say he will?” DG said, sitting up straight in her chair. “He’s alive?”
“But there weren’t any more VAPORS,” Cain said, staring at her. “I checked.”
“I know,” Azkadellia said. “Your hands were bleeding from all the things you’d broken searching for some.” She looked away from DG, blushing. “I was…hasty when I heard my sister was on the island.”
“First to leave, and first to return,” Raw commented, and she nodded.
“Oh my god, you’re a superhero too?” DG shouted. “And you can raise the dead?!”
Azkadellia stared intently at the floor. “It’s an exchange. I can do it by taking another life.”
The room went very, very silent.
“I’m guessing Leona won’t be bothering us again, then,” Cain said. Azkadellia’s face was torn with regret, but she nodded. There was steel in her, no matter how much she tried to deny it. “Where is he?”
A soft, mournful smile crept onto Azkadellia’s lips. “He’s doing the only thing he really remembers how to do.”
Cain frowned and moved out of the bed, ignoring the dried blood caking most of his clothing - it looked like the front of his shirt had been torn apart with shrapnel - and their protests, walking out of the private medical room.
The makeshift hospital for the island was full of people, new casts being plastered onto old broken bones, cuts and amputations and even a couple blanket-covered corpses sitting in the room. Two of the doctors themselves were obviously ex-zombies, one missing an eye and the other with her entire left leg in a cast and a crutch one of them had obviously bent metal pipe to make. They all stared at Cain when he walked out, whispers following him, but he just kept walking.
The complex had even more people in it, those that had recovered standing huddled together with frowning faces and quiet words while the response to Raw and DG’s radio broadcasting moved from group to group. Some were camouflaged soldiers fully equipped with helmet and firearms, while others were simply calming the others down, light blue jumpsuits and the triangular patches on their arms marking them as something he didn’t recognize until he spotted the O and Z crossed on top in the center. People all the way from the Duchy of Auterzoune. He shook his head, heading for the front door. Cain had almost forgotten how much of a high-roller DG and her sister were in the grand scheme of things; seeing all these people was a damn good reminder of their relative places.
Sunlight bombarded Cain with his first step out of the lab, and not for the first time he wished he had his dependable old hat with him. A familiar voice slammed into him too, calling out for people to help other people in an eerily chipper voice.
He had the same ridiculous hair, same nervous but well-meaning smile, same posture that looked like he was barely keeping himself from falling apart. His eyes, on the other hand, were completely human.
“He’s fine, Mr. Cain,” Azkadellia said, heels clicking in a way that seemed so much cleaner than Leona’s had. “Aside from apparent head trauma that has him a little…confused, he’s still Ambrose-”
“Glitch.”
Azkadellia frowned at him, and Cain smiled at her. “That’s Glitch, not Ambrose.”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
He all-out grinned. “Glitch isn’t going to remember me. Probably doesn’t even remember himself right now. And he’s doing this-” Cain waved his hand, including all the people Glitch was helping. “-without remembering any of that. It’s instinct for him to take care of them.”
“He’s been their shepherd for nearly three years,” Azkadellia said, and nodded. “It’s natural to him. I don’t even know if he thinks today is any different from yesterday.”
Cain turned his smile to Azkadellia, placing a hand lightly on her shoulder. “And that’s why he’s Glitch.”
He turned and headed back into the lab, moving along with the flow of survivors. Glitch could meet him for the first time again tomorrow. For now, Cain wanted to take a nice long, naturally-induced nap.
---
“Mr. Cain, I’m going to need you to wake up,” was the unwelcome pronouncement that made his eyes grudgingly open. DG was in the corner with Raw - the two seemed inseparable now - wiping sleep from her eyes while Raw yawned away. Glitch was standing nearby looking very confused, but Azkadellia was standing next to him like a pillar of strength. Cain scowled at the man until he was sure the guy knew he was Not Happy with being woken up, but complied, shifting out of the bed to sit on top of it.
The man was black, and even his facial hair was accented with grey. He wore a tidy suit, and the triangle pin with an O crossed with a Z told Cain all he really needed to know about where the man was from. “How can I help you?”
“I’m Tutor, one of the specialists regarding classified information pertaining to Auterzoune and actions it may or may not have-”
“He’s the spymaster,” DG contributed. When the man turned to give her an irritated look, she just smiled while Raw yawned pointedly.
Tutor cleared his throat. “Well. That’s as good a description as any, I suppose. Anyway, I’m afraid that everyone in this room happens to be classified information now, and the judicial system is currently debating how much of a right you all have to your own bodies.”
“What?!” Glitch shouted, but Tutor plowed right over him.
“Lionel “Raw” Rawlins is an escaped convict, and has been pardoned and given asylum in Auterzoune in return for his total cooperation with the government. The Duchesses, as part of the royal family, have always belonged to their country.”
“Mind, body and soul,” both stated, earning a respectful nod from the spymaster.
“Ambrose over there,” Tutor said, tone casual enough that Cain had to wonder what the man had done to piss Tutor off in the past. “He’s already full of top secret information, so this isn’t a change for him when it comes to Auterzoune policies.”
“But it’s my body, you lapdog!” Glitch snapped out, still looking terrified.
Tutor opened up a briefcase Cain hadn’t even noticed before and pulled out a piece of paper, handing it to him while looking very, very smug. “Not anymore, Ambrose. I’ve heard you’ve had some brain damage, but I assume you still know how to read the fine print on a contract.”
“You don’t own me, and you’re not going to,” Cain said.
“We don’t own you, no,” Tutor agreed. “Which is why it’s very important I explain to you why you can’t tell another living soul what happened here, can’t demonstrate any abnormalities-”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Tutor,” Azkadellia said politely, and cleared her throat. “Mr. Cain seems to…heal. Very quickly.”
“Meaning if he gets hit by a bus he’s going to stand back up, and he’ll never get a paper cut again, and if an extremely compressed container explodes straight into his chest and rips him apart, he’ll get better,” Glitch put in cheerfully, which seemed a bit too specific for Cain to genuinely ignore. “I don’t think anyone can hide that, no matter how hard they try.”
Tutor frowned. He looked Cain up and down, and his frown deepened.
“If I knighted him, he’d be an honorary Auterzounian without having to switch nationalities,” DG suggested. “Then we have a right to clean up after him.”
“But not the right to control him without royal mandate,” Azkadellia added, looking at Cain thoughtfully. “And his actions here have certainly been worthy of knighthood.”
“I still wouldn’t be allowed to tell my son why I can bend metal and recover from an exploding canister I was practically hugging.”
Tutor slowly smiled. “Well, Sir Wyatt Cain, have you ever considered taking your boy on a vacation? To, say, a particular duchy?”
ONE WEEK LATER
“What’s with all the special treatment?” Jeb asked as they were escorted out of Grey Gale International Airport’s main terminal and into a limo waiting right on the tarmac. They’d been offered another cruise, but there was no way in hell Cain was going anywhere near a boat again if he had a choice in the matter.
Cain cleared his throat. “Well. Remember how I’ve been getting mail with Sir in front of my name?”
“You also get mail with Detective in front of your name,” Jeb pointed out. “And Doctor when they have bad information.”
He nodded, letting his hat hide just a bit of his blush. “The Sir isn’t bad information. I’m a fully-fledged Royal Knight of Auterzoune.” Jeb was very, very quiet. “Got knighted last week by both of the Duchess-heirs themselves. Played Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who did it, but DG won in the end-”
“You’re on first name basis with a Duchess and didn’t tell me until now?” Jeb asked.
Cain swallowed. “Two, actually. And I haven’t told you because it’s classified, but there’s more.”
Jeb gaped at him. “Dad, you were gone a little over two weeks. What could you have possibly done in two weeks to get yourself knighted-”
“And I more or less have superpowers,” Cain practically blurted out. “I would have told you but for legal reasons I couldn’t until we were on Duchy soil and like hell was I taking you to that godforsaken zombie island I was trapped on, shorter trip be damned-”
“Dad?” Jeb interrupted.
“Yes, son.”
He smiled at his father. “Start from the beginning.”
.
NOTE: Leona's fighting technique is based on Mystique as seen in the X-Men movies, and the zombies are very much based on those found in the videogame Left 4 Dead, as seen here. (Horde zombies, aka the ones running around with no end in sight, not the special ones seen in the video because there's nooo way they could have survived a Witch [the sobbing woman zombie; she DOES NOT STOP KILLING YOU if you bother her] or a Tank [the hulked out zombie] before they were antidote'd.)
Part 2
“The antidote’s in this room,” Ambrose said, voice still quiet, but he points at the place and looks coherent enough to butcher their way into the place. “I don’t doubt there’s zombies and plenty of obstacles in our way, but we can deal with it. It’ll take some time to release the antidote into the air, since it’s probably still in serum form, but I can fix that. Hopefully. It may take some time, which is why you’ll be heading for the radio room. I think that’s what it was called, at least. DG has plenty of technical know-how to get it up and running.” He pointed to the room, which was comparatively close to the lab.
“And then we just what, wait for someone to come help?” DG asked.
Ambrose shrugged. “That’s the plan. But at soon as we release the antidote, we should have plenty of traumatized ex-lab workers to deal with.”
“They’ll be like you,” Raw said, which Ambrose seemed to simply ignore, checking over all the weapons strapped to him instead.
Cain cleared his throat, uncomfortable but knowing if he didn’t step up, nobody would. Ambrose had been wearing himself thin even before they’d gotten into the security room. “Alright. Everyone strapped in and ready to go?”
“Ready,” Raw agreed. DG adjusted her gun, shifting her vest slightly in the process, and nodded. Cain didn’t even bother waiting for Ambrose’s answer; the man was always ready to fight zombies, and practically half-zombie anyway.
The biggest problem with the room was the distinct lack of any view of the hallway. As far as Cain knew, the hall was packed with them, and if there was anything flammable that a bullet could possibly hit, whatever made the zombies explode could send the building sky-high, underground or not. But, you’d never know until you looked. He took a breath. “Alright. On three, ready?”
“Yep,” Ambrose said, Maude gnawing on her gag over his shoulder. He opened the door and launched himself into the same super-zombie sprint Cain had seen that first day on the beach. “Just get to the radio!” he called over his shoulder.
Three bodies shifted their way into view, almost idly twisting around a corner before catching sight of them all. Ambrose’s free hand reached down to his thigh and pulled one of the machetes out, decapitating one of them in a sickeningly smooth motion, and then he ran onwards as the body thudded to the tile floor.
Helpful, but still not exactly reassuring.
He swung his gun up and aimed for the lead zombie, taking his time. They were moving into a trot, straight down the hallway and zeroing in on them with hungry faces and dead eyes. Nothing but moving targets.
“You remember how to shoot that thing?” Cain asked.
DG swallowed. “I sure as hell remember why I need to shoot it, does that-”
One of Raw’s throwing knives found itself nice and cozy in the lead zombie’s neck, just far enough off for the thing to still be moving, even if it was stumbling in circles and pawing at the air. Cain hesitated long enough to glance at the man and see the grim, determined look on Raw’s face before he switched targets and fired at the second zombie. DG seemed to have picked up with the program, finishing off the first zombie with what had sounded like an entire clip while Cain sent round after round through the zombie’s neck until it fell.
“They’ll have heard that,” Cain said wryly, and started moving forward. Raw grabbed his knife, and they were off, marching fast and watching their surroundings as intently as they could.
“Why’d he leave us?” DG whispered as they turned a corner. There was the patter of footsteps down the opposite corridor. “I would feel a lot safer if we had the experienced half-zombie with us.”
“I’m sure he has a good reason,” Cain said. “Because if he doesn’t I’m going to see if he explodes too.”
“He does,” Raw said calmly, looking down at the brass knuckles he’d taken after Ambrose’s suggestion. “So did everyone else.”
Cain thought back to that journal, how the pyre had blown another man up along with the zombie, and shuddered. Not how he wanted to go. Definitely not how he wanted to go.
“You don’t think any of them escaped the VAPORS?” DG asked, only to stop as the sound of footsteps came again, this time those of slow, high-heeled shoes. She glanced at Cain and pointed to her gun, face turning the gesture into a question. He grit his teeth for a moment before nodding, pulling his own out and turning the corner.
Leona looked at him, head tilting to the side, and Cain had no idea whether or not she was a zombie.
The others in the building had been eerily clean, most likely thanks to the lack of dirt to roll around in, and Leona looked painfully unhealthy but almost like she’d recently taken a shower. What had been short blonde hair in the recordings was now down to her shoulder blades, and her eyes were…strange. They were like Ambrose’s when other zombies were around, but more distant.
If she wasn’t a zombie, that meant she’d been down here without seeing the sun for over two years, which would probably mess anybody up. Then again, there were windows in some places, so-
The way she suddenly crouched on the floor was surprising. Seeing her do that only to launch herself into a ridiculous frog-jump that landed him on the ground with her thighs around his neck (and wow, that was strange and hilariously, disturbingly nostalgic) was nothing short of heart-attack-inducing. Her palm rose up and slammed against his nose, undoubtedly breaking it, and Cain shouted for all he was worth before biting onto his own lip to avoid making more noise and dragging the entire zombie army over. In a heartbeat, Raw was on her, barreling the woman to the floor and hitting her head hard enough against the surface that, zombie or not, she would be out of it for a while.
Raw tossed her over his shoulder, looking very, very uncomfortable. “For Ambrose.”
“I can see why you were going to be allowed to stick around,” DG said a bit weakly. “Thought you were some kind of tarot card infomercial psychic?”
“I was,” Raw said, the words calm and full of regret but without even the smallest trace of an apology in them. He paused for a moment, smiling slightly. “Want a prediction?”
“No,” Cain said, firm and uneasy as they started back down the hall. “I don’t want to start planning for something that might not happen.”
“I’m rarely wrong,” he said.
“Okay, are we going to survive?” DG asked.
“Mostly,” Raw said.
“I can see why you’re rarely wrong if that’s the sort of answers you give,” Cain muttered.
-Attention all occupants of Soal Island Laboratory- Ambrose’s voice spoke up over the intercom, and Cain nearly shot the nearest speaker. -If you are a zombie, I’m sorry, and hopefully I’m going to be fixing that soon. If you’re Cain or DG or Raw, I mostly cleared the way to the radio so head over as fast as you can, because there’s a lot of zombies in here. And if there’s somehow anyone else in here, don’t worry, this will all be over soon and everything will be okay.-
“He doesn’t actually believe it’s going to be okay, does he?” DG asked, eyes wide.
Cain let out a disgruntled sigh. “Hell if I know what the mad scientist is thinking.” He shook his head. “But if he cleared the way, let’s take advantage of it.”
“Remember the directions?” Raw asked.
“I sure do,” DG said firmly, and moved into a jog, the boys not far behind her. They hurried past beheaded corpses and zombies with knives still sticking out of their windpipes, but ignored the gore as best they could. It was necessary, for God’s sake. Kill or be eaten and turn into one of them. It was self-defense in every way, no matter how gruesome a scene it left behind.
The door was, thankfully, labeled. They would have found it, of course, but it was easier this way.
“Get on the radio and get help,” Cain said, and after a minimal amount of scuffling he managed to retrieve Leona from Raw. “I’m going to deliver her to Ambrose, see whether she’s a zombie or not.”
“She attacked. She’s a zombie,” DG stated, already heading to the computers and radio equipment. “But be careful.”
Cain nodded, and slipped out the door.
---
It seemed strange that Ambrose had left the door unlocked up until he realized that really, who would come after him?
“I’m kind of busy, you know,” Ambrose called from where he was shifting things around on a counter. “Vaporizing compounds without altering them takes-”
“I’m delivering Leona,” Cain said, and dropped her slumped form into a nearby chair. He could see Maude twitching in a nearby cage that looked fit for a very large dog - one of many - and considered putting Leona in another to join her. “We couldn’t tell if she was a zombie or not. Her eyes are like yours.”
“So are the zombies’ eyes,” Ambrose said, shoulders tense but not looking over. “Just…put her in the glass chamber over there. The code’s 1208.”
Cain frowned. “You don’t want to even look at her?”
“Just put her in the box, Cain,” Ambrose said, and with a shrug, he did. Leona was situated easily enough against the glass, and the door slid shut and air-tight behind him.
Ambrose still wouldn’t look at him.
“You’re not telling us something.”
“I’m not telling you a lot of things,” Ambrose stated, doing something with a tube of suspiciously silver liquid. “You should go back to the radio room with the others. Get away from Soal as fast as you can.”
“Because we’re not supposed to be here?” Cain asked, settling himself in the same chair Leona had been in. “Sorry, Glitch, but you’re not supposed to be here either.”
“My name’s Ambrose. And if you didn’t notice, I’m mostly one of them already. I belong here.”
“You really do believe that, don’t you?” Cain stared at his back. “God, you honestly think you’re mostly zombie.”
Ambrose’s hands slammed down onto the counter. “I’m the reason all of this even started!” He turned to glare at Cain, his eyes far more human than he’d probably ever admit. “I’m the original zombie. The only reason I’m not eating any of you is I’m too used to being human!”
“You’re used to being human because you are human, Glitch.”
“Ambrose.”
“Glitch.” Cain’s gaze was firm and steady. “Ambrose died two and a half years ago. Glitch is the part of you that survived. The part that always survives.”
“The part that can’t remember anything unless there’s an undead coworker nearby!”
Cain shook his head. “Just finish up, and we can talk afterwards.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said, but turned back to his work.
---
It was hard keeping track of the time when there was no sunlight and all the clocks in the room were still flashing 12:00 incessantly, so he really couldn’t tell how long it’d been since Leona went unconscious when she stood up and stared out of the glass. Which, really, was the creepiest thing. She just stood there, feet shoulder-width apart, and stared at something Cain couldn’t see.
“Glitch?” Cain asked.
“I know,” Ambrose said, and kept on working without a glance towards either of them.
---
-Hey, guys?- DG’s voice sounded over the intercom. Cain’s eyes snapped open, wide and surprised he’d actually fallen asleep. -I’m just going to assume you’re hearing this. Anyway, we’re up and running. It sounds like we might be getting somewhere pretty soon on the making contact front. Hope your side of things is coming along well. And fast.-
“You really should go back to them,” Ambrose said, doing something with equipment that by now Cain wasn’t even trying to guess what it was. It reminded him of a toaster in some ways, though. A cruel and unusual toaster.
Cain frowned at him but didn’t bother launching into the same old argument they’d always end up having, looking at the still-stationary Leona and the still-caged Maude-
He jerked out of the chair, hand on his gun. “Where’s Maude’s gag?”
“I have it,” Ambrose said, quiet and calm, and pointed to where the stick sat on the counter. “Don’t touch it, and don’t go near that cage.”
“I have to go past if I want to get to Leona,” Cain pointed out.
“Why would you need to get to Leona?” Ambrose asked, voice strangely blank.
And for the first time, Leona watched them.
---
Cain can practically feel Ambrose wavering. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been in here, but he does know Ambrose hasn’t stopped working for a single moment. By now he has a small canister of something that he’s still somehow tweaking with, but even the man’s hair looks tired.
He knew it was a bad idea, but he asked anyway. “Why don’t you take a break?”
“I’m almost done,” Ambrose mumbled back, and the words are slurred enough that Cain stood up and walked over to get a good look into his eyes. They still had that eerie pale tinge to them, but they mostly looked brown and exhausted, as if all the time and fighting had finally crashed into him. It didn’t keep his hand from being batted away though, and Ambrose turned back to his work. “I need to finish as soon as possible and you know it.”
“Then multi-task,” Cain argued. “I know you probably have something to do with that antidote that doesn’t require constant attention-”
Glass shattered behind them, and Cain had his revolver out before even realizing what had happened. The only thing that kept him from firing was Ambrose still standing in front of him, looking tense and tired and furious.
Leona stared at them with cruel inhuman eyes, mouth moving carefully even with her lips caught in a snarl. Her legs were shaking, one of her battered high heels held loosely in her bloody left hand, and there was something oddly calculating about her gaze, as if she was calculating body mass and how hard she’d need to twist to break their necks.
“Leona, I have to,” Ambrose snapped, sounding more like an irritated brother than a man staring down a zombie coworker. “They’ll kill and eat them, and they don’t have any part in this! They’re not supposed to be here, and that’s why I’m making sure they leave-”
“It goes on,” she said, voice hoarse and shaking. She sounded like she’d been shot and they were the last words she’d ever get out.
“No, Leona! It doesn’t go on!” Ambrose shouted back, pointing vehemently at Maude, who was biting at the cage which held her. “We did that, Leona! We did this to them, and I’m not going to make them suffer any more than they already have, work be damned-”
The only thing that saved Cain then and there was having raised a toddler with a bad habit of throwing things when in a temper. It was nothing but instinct and a mild case of annoyance when he swerved to the left, and Leona’s single shoed foot screeched against the tile floor as she recovered from her impossible jump. Ten feet, maybe fifteen, and he hadn’t even seen her move. He sure as hell heard her now, snarling and doing her damndest to get away from Ambrose’s undoubtedly painful grasp on her wrists.
“I won’t let you,” Ambrose whispered sharply, teeth grinding against one another with the force of keeping her pinned down. “Cain, the antid-”
Leona’s bare foot slammed into Ambrose’s chest in a gruesome display of flexibility and the man went down hard, Leona not even stopping to check if he would stay down. Cain wasn’t so sure she wasn’t a bona fide zombie with insanity clouding her unnatural eyes, but he didn’t have time to really analyze her sanity considering the woman was heading straight for him with a feverish determination in her eyes.
Cain pulled the revolver out, aiming it at her with hands he’d admit shook a little. If she was strong enough to break through a glass container like that one with nothing but a shoe, he didn’t think even shooting her straight in the spinal cord would save him. “Don’t come any closer,” he said, loud and as firm as he could.
She stopped walking, instead staring straight into his eyes, light glinting off her pupil. “It goes on,” she croaked.
“No,” Cain said, jaw tight. “We release this and you can go outside, see the sun, breathe fresh air-”
Her leg snapped out, and Cain lost his grip on the gun as her shin connected with his wrist. At this rate, he wasn’t that surprised when she managed to catch the revolver out of the air, either. He’d simply accepted the fact almost-zombies knew kung fu. It wasn’t like they’d had anything else to do for over two years, after all. One more jerk of her knee and Cain was on the ground too.
Unimpeded, she stepped towards the counter, legs oddly unstable for someone who’d just kicked him in the chin. His gaze travelled right along with hers, down to the knife planted firmly in her calf.
“Stop,” Ambrose said, breath wheezy and face pained as he got back to his feet. “Don’t you want to see how it ends, Leona? It’ll still be going. The experiment will continue, just with newer factors. We have over two years of data on this, for god’s sake, it’s time to add in a variable-”
Leona gripped the hilt of Ambrose’s throwing knife and pulled it out without even glancing down, head tilted awkwardly and mouth caught in a snarl. “It goes on. It goes on and on, and on, and on and on and onandonandon,” she rasped, dropping the knife to the floor and moving towards Ambrose, slow and viciously intent on her quarry.
Ambrose’s desperation shattered right along with the hope that Leona was somehow still sane.
Cain was as quiet as he could manage when he teetered his way to his feet, still crouched slightly behind the table as Ambrose’s back hit the wall. Leona was limping, but she still managed to have a lethal, killing grace to her every move.
Maude screamed in the cage.
He ignored it as best he could, looking over the antidote and wishing he remembered a damn thing from chemistry other than a third of the periodic table and how everything turned into a dark goo when you got into organic chemistry, and that he’d only passed thanks to Adora being his lab partner, which had been how they met actually, and she’d always been too good for him-
“Press the blue button!” Ambrose shouted from where he was in a fistfight with his own ex-lab partner. Cain blinked, tuning back into the present. Ambrose was bleeding badly from a cut on his temple, but from the disgustingly unnatural angle he could see, Leona had a broken arm but was luckily ignoring Ambrose in favor of repeating onandonandon as if she’d die if she stopped. He ducked under a punch only to narrowly avoid her bad leg. “Cain! Press the blue button on the canister! It’s good enough to let into the air and if I can’t get over there she’s going to-”
Cain didn’t need more of an explanation than that. Ambrose kept talking, Maude kept screaming, Leona kept muttering, and Cain scrounged over the hectic lab counter until he found what looked like a white plastic cup attached to the surface below. There was something whirring around inside of it, and since he couldn’t see anything other than the fan going around and around, he figured that probably meant the antidote was done enough for release.
Well, that and Ambrose’s near-screaming for him to push the blue button.
Frantic fingers danced over the container. Red button on the left, two yellow buttons beneath it, a green button on the right side, and there on the back stood a blue button.
“-on and on and on and on! It goes on! It goes on and on and on-”
Maude’s scream echoed through the room, having finally gnawed her way through one of the bars of her cage.
- Guys! We’ve got someone on the line, and they’re sending a helicopter out, say they’re going to even get us in contact with Azkadellia-
“PUSH IT,” Ambrose screamed, one of the knives out as he did his best to fend Leona off, obviously losing the battle.
Cain’s fist slammed against the button, and white mist burst into the air with enough force that Cain was on the ground one more time, eyes watching Leona and Ambrose fall to the ground with him. Her face was painfully inhuman, twisted up in pain. All Ambrose did was smile as he sagged down to the floor and shut his eyes, Cain’s following barely a second after as the antidote tore through the air ducts, just like the original VAPORS had so very long ago.
---
Cain woke up bloody and dusted with a fine sheen of white powder clinging to his maroon Hawaiian shirt, the lights flickering slightly. He could hear screams outside, heard shouting and banging and sobbing, heard doors moving faster than their stubborn joints were meant to after all this time. It was bedlam outside the lab’s door, but in Ambrose and Leona’s laboratory everything was deathly quiet.
It seemed that every time he woke up on this goddamned island, it was proportionally more difficult to get up and start moving like a human being. His feet slid slightly on the floor, slick and streaking permanent stains when he moved.
He caught sight of Maude, now nothing more than a lifeless lunch lady with dead, painfully human eyes hunched against the tiny hole in the door she’d made while still a zombie. Her arms were, of course, still missing, only now she bled, the blood pooling under her in a horrific puddle big enough that Cain had no idea how long he’d been out of it. He looked at her for just a few moments before he had to turn away, bile burning his throat as he scuffled over towards the lab counter.
Like he’d expected, everything had exploded. The only way anyone was getting any more VAPORS or antidote was by going straight to Ambrose or Leona’s brains, if he’d correctly judged them to be incredibly paranoid bastards.
Cain turned towards said bastards. They were crumpled on the floor, Ambrose’s expression tired and strangely content as he lay against the wall, Leona’s eyes dark and furious and dim and human with her limbs twisted and her body sprawled in a lazy heap against the floor. He shuffled over, cautiously crouching near them.
“Glitch,” he whispered, eyes intent on Leona in case she heard him too. The sounds from behind the door had changed, banging and an almost roaring echo of shouts replacing the unorganized bedlam from before. “Glitch, wake up, we have to go.”
When Glitch didn’t move, Cain let out an irritated huff and shook his shoulder. The only response he received was Glitch’s head rolling forward, followed by his torso bending him in half at the waist. A bright red stain Cain knew far too well was spreading from a place on his back, meaning that the man was bleeding so much that it was even seeping through his coat.
“Oh hell no,” Cain grit out, and stripped the coat off as the shouting increased. A lump formed in his throat when he pried the sticky fabric away only to reveal an almost entirely red shirt that had once been white. “This isn’t happening, Glitch, it isn’t happening, you’re going to be fine.”
He remembered what the videos had said. He’d been stabbed in the back and miraculously revived by the VAPORS and an insane coworker before any of this even started, and the only thing that’d stopped him from being an all-out zombie had been the passing resemblance to the antidote Leona had given him. And then he’d been hit with the VAPORS again, right along with everyone else in the building, and now that he’d been subjected to the actual antidote, the VAPORS were gone and he was dead. Back to square one, and Cain didn’t doubt for a moment that the man had known it would happen.
Glitch had been the first person to protect him since Adora. Now, he was the second person to die to save him.
Someone was banging on the door, but Cain ignored them, stumbling to his feet and making his way over to the counter. There had to be some VAPORS left, something to use to bring him back. He ignored the look that’d been on the man’s face when he died, because nobody was dying for him again, nobody was going to die period. His hands scrambled across the area, reading labels and slamming the containers back down even when he heard Leona’s first rattling breath as she woke up, bordering on a scream.
The door burst open but Cain ignored it, ignored the hands that grabbed him and pulled him away, ignored the unfamiliar female voice shouting his name into his ear, ignored it all until a needle pushed into his arm and he grudgingly sunk into unconscious, a bottle of nothing but saline dropping from unfeeling fingers.
---
Cain woke up angry enough that he didn’t notice he’d squeezed the metal sides of his hospital bed into the exact shape of his fist until Raw’s hand gently pried his own off them.
“It takes some getting used to,” DG said quietly in a chair to his left, and from the broken pieces of porcelain that looked like they’d been a coffee mug a few seconds ago, he guessed he wasn’t the only one to suddenly have super-strength. She cleared her throat uncomfortably, Raw taking his seat next to her without a word. “Azkadellia said it’s the after-effects of the antidote. It’s why Glitch and Leona were so…” She grasped for the word.
“Powerful,” Raw supplied, looking at the tile floor before shifting his gaze to Cain. “He’s dead.”
“I know,” Cain said as calmly as he could manage. From the sympathetic looks he got from them, he figured they could fill in the I saw him die without him needing to say it out loud. He took a deep breath. “The zombies?”
“Also went superman,” DG said. “They’re confused, terrified, extremely traumatized, but human aside from running fast and being able to punch through walls.” She hesitated. “And we’re…kind of a bit more super than them.”
“They rank as enhanced, but you three are very close to super,” a woman said quietly from the doorway. She had long black hair tied in an elaborate ponytail on the top of her head and a stylish black suit with a golden shirt underneath it. She also had bags under her eyes, and her eyes continually flicking over to DG told him her name just as easily as an introduction. “DG seems to think she might be telekinetic, and her friend might be telepathic.”
Cain frowned at her. “Glitch didn’t have any ridiculous super-powers.”
Azkadellia’s smile was bittersweet. “I guess you never saw him run. Satellites measured him at thirty-four miles an hour on the beach last year. I can only imagine what he’ll be able to do on pavement.”
His hands clenched into fists that he was careful to keep against his thighs. “You mean to tell me you’ve been watching him all this time, and never thought to get him off Soal?”
“If we’d gotten him off the island, he could have infected someone and we’d have had zombies on the mainland. I couldn’t take that risk, no matter how badly I wanted to save him-”
“Wait, did you say he will?” DG said, sitting up straight in her chair. “He’s alive?”
“But there weren’t any more VAPORS,” Cain said, staring at her. “I checked.”
“I know,” Azkadellia said. “Your hands were bleeding from all the things you’d broken searching for some.” She looked away from DG, blushing. “I was…hasty when I heard my sister was on the island.”
“First to leave, and first to return,” Raw commented, and she nodded.
“Oh my god, you’re a superhero too?” DG shouted. “And you can raise the dead?!”
Azkadellia stared intently at the floor. “It’s an exchange. I can do it by taking another life.”
The room went very, very silent.
“I’m guessing Leona won’t be bothering us again, then,” Cain said. Azkadellia’s face was torn with regret, but she nodded. There was steel in her, no matter how much she tried to deny it. “Where is he?”
A soft, mournful smile crept onto Azkadellia’s lips. “He’s doing the only thing he really remembers how to do.”
Cain frowned and moved out of the bed, ignoring the dried blood caking most of his clothing - it looked like the front of his shirt had been torn apart with shrapnel - and their protests, walking out of the private medical room.
The makeshift hospital for the island was full of people, new casts being plastered onto old broken bones, cuts and amputations and even a couple blanket-covered corpses sitting in the room. Two of the doctors themselves were obviously ex-zombies, one missing an eye and the other with her entire left leg in a cast and a crutch one of them had obviously bent metal pipe to make. They all stared at Cain when he walked out, whispers following him, but he just kept walking.
The complex had even more people in it, those that had recovered standing huddled together with frowning faces and quiet words while the response to Raw and DG’s radio broadcasting moved from group to group. Some were camouflaged soldiers fully equipped with helmet and firearms, while others were simply calming the others down, light blue jumpsuits and the triangular patches on their arms marking them as something he didn’t recognize until he spotted the O and Z crossed on top in the center. People all the way from the Duchy of Auterzoune. He shook his head, heading for the front door. Cain had almost forgotten how much of a high-roller DG and her sister were in the grand scheme of things; seeing all these people was a damn good reminder of their relative places.
Sunlight bombarded Cain with his first step out of the lab, and not for the first time he wished he had his dependable old hat with him. A familiar voice slammed into him too, calling out for people to help other people in an eerily chipper voice.
He had the same ridiculous hair, same nervous but well-meaning smile, same posture that looked like he was barely keeping himself from falling apart. His eyes, on the other hand, were completely human.
“He’s fine, Mr. Cain,” Azkadellia said, heels clicking in a way that seemed so much cleaner than Leona’s had. “Aside from apparent head trauma that has him a little…confused, he’s still Ambrose-”
“Glitch.”
Azkadellia frowned at him, and Cain smiled at her. “That’s Glitch, not Ambrose.”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
He all-out grinned. “Glitch isn’t going to remember me. Probably doesn’t even remember himself right now. And he’s doing this-” Cain waved his hand, including all the people Glitch was helping. “-without remembering any of that. It’s instinct for him to take care of them.”
“He’s been their shepherd for nearly three years,” Azkadellia said, and nodded. “It’s natural to him. I don’t even know if he thinks today is any different from yesterday.”
Cain turned his smile to Azkadellia, placing a hand lightly on her shoulder. “And that’s why he’s Glitch.”
He turned and headed back into the lab, moving along with the flow of survivors. Glitch could meet him for the first time again tomorrow. For now, Cain wanted to take a nice long, naturally-induced nap.
---
“Mr. Cain, I’m going to need you to wake up,” was the unwelcome pronouncement that made his eyes grudgingly open. DG was in the corner with Raw - the two seemed inseparable now - wiping sleep from her eyes while Raw yawned away. Glitch was standing nearby looking very confused, but Azkadellia was standing next to him like a pillar of strength. Cain scowled at the man until he was sure the guy knew he was Not Happy with being woken up, but complied, shifting out of the bed to sit on top of it.
The man was black, and even his facial hair was accented with grey. He wore a tidy suit, and the triangle pin with an O crossed with a Z told Cain all he really needed to know about where the man was from. “How can I help you?”
“I’m Tutor, one of the specialists regarding classified information pertaining to Auterzoune and actions it may or may not have-”
“He’s the spymaster,” DG contributed. When the man turned to give her an irritated look, she just smiled while Raw yawned pointedly.
Tutor cleared his throat. “Well. That’s as good a description as any, I suppose. Anyway, I’m afraid that everyone in this room happens to be classified information now, and the judicial system is currently debating how much of a right you all have to your own bodies.”
“What?!” Glitch shouted, but Tutor plowed right over him.
“Lionel “Raw” Rawlins is an escaped convict, and has been pardoned and given asylum in Auterzoune in return for his total cooperation with the government. The Duchesses, as part of the royal family, have always belonged to their country.”
“Mind, body and soul,” both stated, earning a respectful nod from the spymaster.
“Ambrose over there,” Tutor said, tone casual enough that Cain had to wonder what the man had done to piss Tutor off in the past. “He’s already full of top secret information, so this isn’t a change for him when it comes to Auterzoune policies.”
“But it’s my body, you lapdog!” Glitch snapped out, still looking terrified.
Tutor opened up a briefcase Cain hadn’t even noticed before and pulled out a piece of paper, handing it to him while looking very, very smug. “Not anymore, Ambrose. I’ve heard you’ve had some brain damage, but I assume you still know how to read the fine print on a contract.”
“You don’t own me, and you’re not going to,” Cain said.
“We don’t own you, no,” Tutor agreed. “Which is why it’s very important I explain to you why you can’t tell another living soul what happened here, can’t demonstrate any abnormalities-”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Tutor,” Azkadellia said politely, and cleared her throat. “Mr. Cain seems to…heal. Very quickly.”
“Meaning if he gets hit by a bus he’s going to stand back up, and he’ll never get a paper cut again, and if an extremely compressed container explodes straight into his chest and rips him apart, he’ll get better,” Glitch put in cheerfully, which seemed a bit too specific for Cain to genuinely ignore. “I don’t think anyone can hide that, no matter how hard they try.”
Tutor frowned. He looked Cain up and down, and his frown deepened.
“If I knighted him, he’d be an honorary Auterzounian without having to switch nationalities,” DG suggested. “Then we have a right to clean up after him.”
“But not the right to control him without royal mandate,” Azkadellia added, looking at Cain thoughtfully. “And his actions here have certainly been worthy of knighthood.”
“I still wouldn’t be allowed to tell my son why I can bend metal and recover from an exploding canister I was practically hugging.”
Tutor slowly smiled. “Well, Sir Wyatt Cain, have you ever considered taking your boy on a vacation? To, say, a particular duchy?”
ONE WEEK LATER
“What’s with all the special treatment?” Jeb asked as they were escorted out of Grey Gale International Airport’s main terminal and into a limo waiting right on the tarmac. They’d been offered another cruise, but there was no way in hell Cain was going anywhere near a boat again if he had a choice in the matter.
Cain cleared his throat. “Well. Remember how I’ve been getting mail with Sir in front of my name?”
“You also get mail with Detective in front of your name,” Jeb pointed out. “And Doctor when they have bad information.”
He nodded, letting his hat hide just a bit of his blush. “The Sir isn’t bad information. I’m a fully-fledged Royal Knight of Auterzoune.” Jeb was very, very quiet. “Got knighted last week by both of the Duchess-heirs themselves. Played Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who did it, but DG won in the end-”
“You’re on first name basis with a Duchess and didn’t tell me until now?” Jeb asked.
Cain swallowed. “Two, actually. And I haven’t told you because it’s classified, but there’s more.”
Jeb gaped at him. “Dad, you were gone a little over two weeks. What could you have possibly done in two weeks to get yourself knighted-”
“And I more or less have superpowers,” Cain practically blurted out. “I would have told you but for legal reasons I couldn’t until we were on Duchy soil and like hell was I taking you to that godforsaken zombie island I was trapped on, shorter trip be damned-”
“Dad?” Jeb interrupted.
“Yes, son.”
He smiled at his father. “Start from the beginning.”
.
NOTE: Leona's fighting technique is based on Mystique as seen in the X-Men movies, and the zombies are very much based on those found in the videogame Left 4 Dead, as seen here. (Horde zombies, aka the ones running around with no end in sight, not the special ones seen in the video because there's nooo way they could have survived a Witch [the sobbing woman zombie; she DOES NOT STOP KILLING YOU if you bother her] or a Tank [the hulked out zombie] before they were antidote'd.)