The Immortal Coil Read online

  I would never make it if I ran. I let go and kicked the door to knock the guy backward so I was able to close him in. The horrible sound of both mutated men and their frantic pounding on the doors filled the hallway. Out of breath, I staggered over to call the elevator with my heart pounding in my chest. I would have taken the stairs, but there were probably more of those things on every floor.

  My hands and pants were smeared with blood, which must have been from my fall earlier. This wasn’t anthrax or any disease I’d heard of. No wonder they were trying to quarantine this place — “trying” being the operative word. Mr. Stahl mentioned that the woman they took to the hospital had just come back from a trip abroad. If she went somewhere in the jungle, this could be a flesh-eating bacteria that caused hallucinations or schizophrenia. I’d never heard of anything turning blood black, though.

  Now that I thought about it, back in the hotel lobby the veins in Shannon’s sick friend’s face were unnaturally dark.

  The elevator was on the floor below me when I heard a thumping sound coming from down the shaft. I’d have to take my chances on the stairs, going one floor at a time. I had barely made it to the stairs when a loud crash startled me. My apartment door fell off of its hinges, releasing the maddened worker into the hall.

  I raced down the stairs, praying I wouldn’t draw attention to myself. The sound of a police siren out on the street was the first bit of relief I’d felt all night. I checked from the window on the stairs to see a single police cruiser parking in front of the building. The young officer who had answered my questions was getting out of the car.

  I started to run downstairs to meet up with him when I heard several pairs of footsteps on the floor below. The officer was going to walk right into them if I didn’t warn him in time. Hopefully, more police were going to show up, but what was he doing here on his own anyway? I crouched down on the steps waiting so I could get his attention when he came up, but more footsteps back on my floor ruined that plan. Now I was trapped between floors with nowhere else to hide.

  It seemed like the cop was taking far too long to reach the stairwell. Please tell me these things didn’t already get to him. The footsteps from the floor above were coming closer. I went down a few more steps to the next landing until I heard they were right above my head. I tried to hold my breath so as not to make any sound, but there would be no way to get the cop’s attention without alerting the mutant above me too.

  What’s taking him so long? Don’t tell me he left.

  “I was beginning to think nobody was here.” It was the officer. From over the railing, I spotted his blond hair two floors below. I bolted down the stairs after him, hoping I got there in time. “Where’s the rest of your team?” He was walking further away, trying to make contact with one of the infected CDC workers.

  “No, don’t go near him!” I screamed.

  The officer whirled around and put his hand on his firearm. “What are you doing in here? Civilians aren’t allowed —”

  “We have to get out of here! Something turned everybody here into monsters!” I pleaded, keeping my eyes on the worker down the hall.

  “Have you been drinking, sir?”

  “I’m not drunk. This is serious! We are in huge danger here.”

  Footsteps were coming down the stairs now and the man down the hall he had been trying to talk to was turning in our direction.

  “Is that blood on your jeans? Show me your hands,” the officer instructed, and took out his firearm.

  I put my hands up, realizing just how bad this must look.

  “Please, you have to believe me. I didn’t do anything.” Words weren’t going to matter. The more I talked, the crazier I sounded, and we were about to get sandwiched by mutants.

  The cop was aiming his firearm at me. My heart was racing faster than ever as I stared down the barrel of a gun. I had never been in trouble in my life and now I was in an infested apartment with a police officer pointing a gun at my head.

  “Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head. No sudden moves.” I hesitated, unsure which would be worse: a quick shooting death or being torn apart. “Do it!” he demanded.

  I did as I was told, lacking the courage to openly defy an officer of the law while at gunpoint. He stayed out of range and had started to use the radio on his shoulder when he was interrupted by the sound of running behind him.

  “Look out!” I tried to warn him, but it was too late.

  The infected CDC worker tackled the officer to the floor. They wrestled on the ground while I watched, frozen for a moment. The other mutant coming downstairs spotted us and charged. I ran over to help by kicking the worker in the head so the officer could get the upper hand on the mutant and put him in handcuffs.

  “There’s another!” I pointed to the one from upstairs who was blocking our way out.

  “Get back down and don’t move, do you understand?” He sounded like he thought I still had something to do with this, but I followed orders anyway.

  The handcuffed man was snarling and thrashing on the ground.

  “Stop right there. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to, sir.” He was aiming his gun at the second mutant now.

  “Look at their faces. They won’t listen. They’re not even people anymore,” I explained. Sure enough, it dashed right at him. He took a shot and hit it in the leg at close range, but the infected man wasn’t slowed down at all. The officer fired another shot at its leg, but didn’t do anything to stop the mutant from advancing. There was another loud crash upstairs, followed by the sound of running, like when my door broke off its hinges.

  “Get up.” The officer retreated toward me. He remained focused on the man in front of us as we backed away. “I don’t want to have to fire another shot, sir, but you’re leaving me no choice.”

  After the mutant ignored his warning, the officer fired two more shots into its chest, still to no effect.

  “There’s no way,” I heard the officer whisper to himself. He took a final shot between the mutant’s eyes and laid it out right alongside the one in handcuffs. There wasn’t much time to rejoice. The mutant with the broken hand was down on our floor now and coming after us just like the last.

  As if things weren’t bad enough, the one in handcuffs also managed to break free. “There’s an open apartment behind us we can hide in,” I pointed out.

  The cop fired another shot at one mutant’s head, but it did little more than stagger. The mutant we thought was dead was getting back up now too. “How is that even possible?” the cop exclaimed. “Get to the open apartment, but stay close.”

  We flew down the corridor with all three mutants in pursuit. It took both of us to push the door closed with them trying to get in. “I can’t call for help,” he said. “That thing broke my radio, but other officers should be here soon.”

  “I know it looks bad, but I swear I don’t have anything to do with this,” I said, pleading my innocence again.

  “What are you doing here anyway?” he asked. “This building was under investigation to be quarantined.”

  “I live here. Well, upstairs. I came back to get my stuff after I heard my landlord was coming to do the same. I didn’t think it was anything like this.”

  “Neither did I. I was on my way home when I heard over the radio that we lost contact with the CDC crew. They were supposed to do a sweep of the building and check in every hour unless they found something. I should have never come in without backup, but I was already in the area and it sounded more like a lazy crew than anything.”

  “I’m glad you came when you did. I would probably be dead by now if you hadn’t, or turned into one of those things.” I switched the lights on and looked around the room, hoping for a phone or something to defend ourselves with when the door inevitably got broken down. “What was the CDC expecting to find, anyway? What the hell causes that?”

  “All I know is that neighbor of yours they took out of here was said to have looked suspicious. I
didn’t get to see her myself, but I heard it wasn’t pretty.” The cop joined me in scoping out the room. “No fire escape. Great. We’re not even facing the street to call for help. Nobody would hear us from here.”

  “We should barricade the door.” I let him know all about my encounter with the infected workers while we moved furniture. He was doing a decent job remaining calm during all of this.

  I wasn’t sure what kind of training the NYPD went through, but if he was just a rookie then we should be in good shape when the others got there.

  “Hey, whoever lives here must collect swords.” I pointed out two medieval swords mounted on the wall. “We can use them to protect ourselves.”

  “They’re just decorations.” He looked over from the window. “I’ll check the kitchen for something better, but I’d rather we didn’t get that close again to needing it.”

  The mutants weren’t giving up their rabid assault outside. The sound of splintering wood from the doorframe of our sanctuary was almost more frightening than the unnatural howling. At this rate, we had another five minutes at most before we were overrun.

  “So, by ‘suspicious’ do you mean terrorism?” I was beginning to think the police knew more about this from the start than they were willing to let on. “There were a lot of police for one sick woman, and the CDC was called in pretty quickly.”

  “I told you I don’t know anything, and even if I did I couldn’t discuss it. Let’s just worry about staying alive for now.” His words made me more curious than ever, but I ran out of time to question him. The door finally gave way, letting in the trio of mutants. “Get in the bedroom, close the door, and hide. I’m going to hold them off,” the officer said, taking his gun back out.

  “You’re crazy! They’ll kill you. You won’t have enough ammo to take them all down.” He couldn’t have been any more than a couple of years older than me, but he was ready to face a painful death for some stranger. I wanted to believe it was an act of heroism, not insanity, but in reality, it was probably a bit of both. Heroism would sound a lot better at his eulogy, though.

  Sirens blared in the distance. We just needed to survive a few more minutes until the rest of the police got here. The mutants clambered over the barricade, completely undeterred by the officer’s last few bullets.

  The clicking sound of the gun’s empty clip made my heart sink.

  He looked back at me while taking out a knife from his back pocket that he had gotten from the kitchen. I could see his resolve starting to waver. “I told you to hide!”

  I didn’t know what to do. All three mutant creatures were on him now. The way out was clear now, but I couldn’t just leave him here to die. Two of the infected men’s masks had come off during the fight. They were doing everything they could to bite the cop, but he was just barely managing to pull away in time.

  Using the knife, he stabbed one of them in the side of the head. As the cop twisted the knife a few times, the worker finally collapsed lifelessly.

  One of the remaining mutants almost bit into the cop’s wrist, but, on impulse, I jumped in and pulled it off.

  “Get out of here! Go find help, the others should be here by now,” he said, looking up at me. He had killed one, but he looked like his energy was fading fast. The last two had him pinned and were doing everything they could to maim him.

  I used my body weight as leverage to tear one of the infected away from the officer. A sudden sharp pain in my ankle stopped me from helping with another. I looked down in horror. The one we thought was dead gripped my leg.

  “Why won’t you just die?” I screamed and kicked it in the head. The creature’s jaw broke, but it still kept attacking. It knocked me off balance, making me fall to the floor near the cop. This was becoming more and more hopeless by the minute.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the swords up on the wall. Ornamental or not, they still looked sharp. If only I could get one of them to buy us more time. I reached out for the swords, even though they were across the room. “Please, why do you have to be so far away … just come a little closer,” I begged, imagining them flying to me in response.

  The swords began to quiver in their fixture. I wasn’t sure if I was being too hopeful, but I kept calling for them in my mind. The officer was still grappling on the ground with two of the infected workers. He had lost the knife during the brawl and was reduced to punching them in self-defense.

  I needed both hands to keep the mutant on top of me at bay, but I also didn’t want to lose sight of the swords, which were now shaking violently against the wall. The creature’s face was dangerously close to my own. I could feel its chilling black and gray eyes staring down at me.

  “Don’t get up,” I told the cop, not that he was in any position to anyway. A whistling sound cut through the air as the swords flew from the wall. One of the blades plunged deep into the torso of a mutant attacking the officer. The second sword impaled both of the ones remaining and continued out the window with their bodies. “I can’t believe that worked.”

  “What the hell was that?” the cop said, staring at me in shock. He threw the last mutant to the floor, took the sword out of its body, and stabbed it through the forehead. Finally, the creature gave one last spasm before crumpling to the ground for good.

  My moment of elation came to an abrupt end. The officer recovered his knife and wielded it defensively in my direction.

  “What the hell are you? What did you just do?” he yelled.

  I was probably more afraid of him than he was of me. I should have known something like this was going to happen, but I thought saving our lives was a good enough reason to reveal my secret. After how heroic the cop had just been I wanted to believe he’d be more open-minded, but he was acting like I was one of them.

  “I, I saved us —” I stammered. “I’m a person, not like them! Please, I can explain.”

  He kept his eyes on me with a look of distrust, but put the knife in his back pocket. His expression hurt me more than the lingering pain in my ankle. This is exactly what I was afraid of. One day my secret was going to come out and whoever it was would disregard everything else they knew about me and only see my inner demons.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said right in time. The mutant skewered to the floor was beginning to come back to life.

  I shut the door behind us and ran down the hall toward the sound of voices coming from downstairs. On the floor below were three police officers, who promptly raised their firearms at the sight of us.

  “I’m NYPD. Officer Turner, 23rd Precinct.” The cop I was with held up his badge to identify himself.

  The three turned their attention to me next.

  “It’s fine, he’s with me.” I was relieved Officer Turner vouched for me after how he acted. I expected him to turn me in and treat me like I was one of those creatures.

  “Sergeant O’Donnell.” One of them stepped forward. “What is a civilian doing in a quarantine zone, officer? And why are both of your clothes torn and bloody?”

  I let Officer Turner do the talking, since it would sound a lot better coming from him.

  “He lives here, it’s a long story. We have to get out of here, Sergeant. This is going to sound crazy, but something mutated whoever was working here into … well, into monsters, sir.”

  The three cops looked at each other.

  “Officer, we’ve been through every inch of the first couple of floors. The only thing suspicious here is the two of you soaked in blood and the absence of the CDC. Tell me why you didn’t call for help and how that’s supposed to look from my perspective.”

  “My radio broke while engaging them. We trapped one in an apartment upstairs,” Officer Turner told the others. “I’ll take you to it, but call in backup. We have no idea how many more there are.”

  Going back upstairs was a death sentence, even with guns, but they weren’t going to listen. After everything we had gone through, I’m sure Officer Turner wasn’t looking forward to going.

&
nbsp; One of the other officers spoke up. “You trapped a CDC employee in an apartment?”

  “He’s more of a nightmare than an employee.” I felt bad listening to him try to explain, but I didn’t want to get involved any more than I already was.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to hand over your gun and the knife,” Sergeant O’Donnell said. Officer Turner complied without protest and allowed the sergeant to check his gun. “The clip is empty.”

  “Yes, sir. I had to defend myself and the unarmed civilian.” Officer Turner stood his ground even though this wasn’t going well at all. Part of me wished one of the mutants would come running out just to prove him right.

  “Escort Officer Turner upstairs. If you find anything dead other than ‘monsters,’ put him under arrest. I’ll be keeping his firearm for now in case it’s needed for evidence,” the sergeant ordered. “I’ll take the civilian down to the hospital to get checked out.”

  “I’m fine, really. I’m staying at a hotel not far from here.” The last place I wanted to be right now was a hospital.

  “Son, you’re lucky I’m not arresting you for trespassing and whatever else is going on here. The fact is, you are here against the law and potentially contaminated now, based on the CDC’s findings. So you tell me, will you get examined voluntarily or do I have to put you under arrest?”

  Actually, jail was the last place I wanted to be. I agreed to go with the sergeant and followed him out to his car. At least I was free from that nightmare, but what about the others still in there?

  Chapter Three

  The ride to the hospital was filled with awkward silence. I thought the sergeant might grill me on what happened at the apartment, but he didn’t speak. Judging by my reflection in the backseat window, I looked as bad as I smelled. My brown hair was usually a case of chronic bed head, but now it was matted with dried blood.

  It was taking a really long time to get to the hospital. I knew we had been driving for almost half an hour by the clock, but was scared to say anything. They might have a special site set up to handle this, but why would it be so far away from the apartment?