Prologue - Laboratory Antics

 Prologue – Laboratory Antics 

    Working in this miserable place—a combination bar, inn, grocery store, and whatever else you can imagine—I’ve heard countless tales, and even I struggle to believe some of them. Seriously, why are we hiding in this hole in the side of a mountain?  

    I have no clue! We have to scavenge for supplies that aren't contaminated by any of the new infections or guarded by twisted, monstrous creatures. We call this place a "bar," but good luck finding a drink that isn't severely watered down or full of fuckin’ dirt! 

    I've documented several accounts from survivors, organizing them into a rough chronological story of how the world fell apart. I thought, "Why not share these horror stories that explain how everything went wrong?"  

    If nothing else, it might help someone else solve the problems we face now. Every story needs a beginning, though I wish this one had a happy ending. And for the record, why does this apocalyptic shit always start in a lab!? Anyway, here goes nothing: 

Kanon (Apox) O'Sullivan 

Bartender at the "Lazarus Bar/Inn" 

    The lab they worked in was filled with the latest high-tech gadgets available for scientific research. The government funded almost all of their work, so they only had to submit occasional updates—and sometimes even exaggerate their accomplishments—to keep their jobs secure.  

    Even though the room felt cramped with all the equipment, the researchers enjoyed experimenting with every kind of new concoction, and the latest shipment had just arrived. 

    "Where the hell do they even get this stuff, Jenna? It doesn’t look like any chemical I’ve ever seen," the male lab technician said as he examined a vial containing the newest chemical delivered by their government-funded overseers.  

    He watched as the liquid shifted with every movement of his hand; the substance glowed with an almost neon blue hue that, when reflected in his deep brown eyes, made them appear an intense, dark shade of gray. 

    "I don't know, Baxter!" Jenna retorted as she snatched the vial from his hand and placed it back on the centrifuge. She grumbled in annoyance as her shoulder-length, unkempt brown hair blocked her vision with the sudden motion.  

    With her hazmat suit preventing her from simply brushing it aside, she shook her head to clear her view. She glared at him through her sensitive, emerald-green eyes.  

    "We need to test it," she said, placing another vial on the opposite side of the centrifuge to balance it out. 

    "I love the spinny thingy," Baxter giggled as he activated the device. It began to whirl, scattering the vials like a fan. With a goofy grin on his face, he clapped his hands and, with a practiced motion, pressed his index finger to the front of his hazmat faceguard, trying to adjust his glasses. 

    "I hate these damn suits!" his frustration evident as he tilted his head back to fix his glasses. "Grrr!! I swear my hair is going to look like a monkey has been picking ticks!" shaking his head in sync with efforts to quell an itch, he pressed the suit tight against his hair.  

    Jenna chuckled at the sight, watching how his naturally disheveled dark blonde hair fanned out from the static buildup. 

    "You're so immature… and unprofessional, Baxter," she shot him a scolding glance, though her smile betrayed her underlying amusement as she turned away to feed the test rats in the cages behind them.

    "Come on, Jenna. You know I'm just messing around. It's not like there's anyone else here," Baxter defended his antics, stepping away from the centrifuge. 

    "It's still childish," Jenna countered as she focused on tending to the rats. "What I don’t get is why they don’t relocate us away from civilization for tests like these with strange, foreign chemicals. Who knows what adverse effects might occur if they’re mishandled?" changing the subject in effort to avoid confrontation. 

    "Yeah, they could explode into a massive fireball!" Baxter took the bait, abandoning his prior defenses of his actions, then turned back to the centrifuge as it begun to slow down. "Wow! That’s weird," his astonishment was evident in his tone. He removed the substance vials from the rack once it stopped spinning. 

    "What?" Jenna asked, stepping away from the rodents to face him. Her gaze fixed in awe as she moved closer, scrutinizing the vials in his hands. 

    "The substance changed colors!" Baxter's breathing hastened, his excitement he struggled to contain. The once vibrant blue liquid had turned into a dense shade of black.  

    "I can’t wait to mix this!" he said, his childlike enthusiasm returning as he placed both vials in a stationary rack. He grabbed a syringe and inserted the needle into the top of one of the vials to collect a sample. 

    "Put it under the microscope first," Jenna snatched the sample from him. Baxter paused for a moment and shot her an intense glare. 

    “You know, just because I act like a kid doesn’t mean I actually am one,” he postured, shoulders square, pushing back against what he perceived as a patronizing remark.  

    He then carefully dispensed a small amount of the mysterious substance onto a glass slide and slid it under the microscope.  

    For what felt like an eternity, he peered silently through the lens while Jenna stood with her arms folded nearby. Growing restless, Jenna's excitement seized her, “Well!?” 

    Baxter backed away from the microscope with a puzzled look. “Honestly, I have no clue—I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said with a shrug as he backed away, nearly colliding with Jenna. She propelled herself forward toward the microscope, giving him a quick shove as she passed. 

    “Let me take a look!” she insisted, barreling onward despite her complete lack of familiarity with the substance. Baxter eyed the syringe in his hand as he contemplated their next move. 

    “Hold on!” Jenna commanded, her voice muffled by the faceguard. She blinked through the eyepiece, her nose pressed tight in concentration. “It’s moving,” her eyes locked, a thread of awe running through her tone. 

    Baxter hesitated, looking back at her. “Moving? Like, alive moving?” Fiddling with the syringe in his hand, he raised an eyebrow at the uncharacteristic reverence.  

    "Told you it was cool," he said, placing a drop of the black liquid onto a dish and watching it spread. "Think we should name it after me? 'The Baxter Effect'? 'Steelwell's Element'?" 

    “It’s reacting—replicating—like a pathogen,” she mused, the analytical part of Jenna’s mind spinning faster than the centrifuge had moments before, ignoring the intentional suggestion Baxter had thrown in.  

    “But I’ve never seen anything with this structure.” Baxter’s eyes widened, a mix of excitement and trepidation dancing across his features. 

    “Well, I guess we have to start testing it,” he said, beginning to ready the chemicals and Petri dishes.Jenna remained silent, lost in thought. She bit her lip, a flurry of possible trajectories and mutations sparking through her mind. 

    “I suppose we have no choice,” Jenna agreed, stepping away to dispose of the sample before joining Baxter in assembling the materials for testing.  

    "Let's see how it reacts to heat," she said. For hours they worked, concocting several mixtures to combine with the enigmatic substance, their adrenaline building like that of MMA fighters preparing for a fight. 

    “This is like every scientist’s dream!” Baxter exclaimed, his excitement mounting as they neared the testing phase. “Who knows—we might actually come up with a cure for cancer or something!” His enthusiasm only grew from there. 

    “Don’t get ahead of yourself… and calm down!” Jenna chided, grabbing a syringe to start applying the substance.  

    Taking a deep breath, she injected the chemical into the first mixture, and together they waited with bated breath, only to be met with disappointment when nothing occurred. 

    “...Well, that was anticlimactic,” Baxter stood, disappointed at the end result.  He gathered a handful of glass slides and steped over to load more samples under the microscope, while Jenna injected the substance into several different mixtures they had labeled in numerical order. In short order, they progressed through fifty mixtures. 

    “Formula fifty-one… ready,” she looked to Baxter, indicating it was time to observe that sample. As she turned to grab the mixture labeled fifty-two, a faint crackle sounded from the previous Petri dish.

    Both techs refocused on formula fifty-one, noticing the fluid seeping through a newly formed crack in the dish and spreading across the table. “Oh shit!” Baxter sprinted for the chemical cleanup kit. “Ouch!” pain seeped in, halting him when he caught his arm on a sharp piece of equipment.

    His safety suit tore open where the jagged edge sliced his arm. Jenna paid little attention to his pained outburst, instead fixating on the unsettling behavior of the fluid. It moved as if it had a life of its own—twisting and writhing until it reached a piece of equipment.  

    Sparks flew from the electronic device on contact, landing in another Petri dish, where flames erupted and caught a piece of cloth on fire.  Jenna leaped back to avoid the flames, accidentally colliding with a rat cage and knocking it over. With rodents now scurrying around, and a blaze igniting, she switched into damage control mode. 

    “What happened!?” Baxter rushed towards the growing fire, clutching his gashed arm. The fluid continued to drip onto the floor, spreading its reach further. “A chain reaction!” Jenna turned for the door. “Let’s go!” she said, beckoning Baxter to follow her. 

    “The fire’s going to get to the chemicals!” Baxter's urgency rose as he pushed the Petri dishes away from the flames. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his pale skin glistening under the flickering light, while the scars and blemishes beneath the surface became all too visible as his heart pounded.  

    In his panic, he slipped, crashing his head against the table in a clumsy, collapsing motion that left him motionless on the floor. 

    Jenna spun around in alarm, witnessing the impact. Realizing there was no time to rescue him before the fire spread further, she bolted out the door and pulled the decontamination lever.  

    The doors slammed shut and locked as the sprinklers erupted, dousing the flames. Fear consuming her, she removed her hood and peered back into the lab. 

    Inside the decontamination room, a shower of water cascaded over her as thick smoke engulfed the lab. The water streamed down her face and over her tanned skin.  

    She swiped at her glasses, trying to get a clearer view. The acrid smell of cinders filled her nostrils, and an eerie sensation of vertigo took hold until she managed to see the lab through the smoke. 

    Baxter lay face down beside the table, and rats swarmed the floor like a plague—some licking the spilled fluid, others already nibbling on Baxter’s injured arm and head.  

    Once the decontamination cycle ended, the doors unlocked. Jenna pulled her hood back on, yanked the door open, and ran toward her colleague’s side. 

    “Baxter!” she said, rolling him over onto his back. Despite showing no signs of life, she managed to hoist his small frame onto a nearby table. She removed his hood and leaned in to listen for any sign of breathing, but there was none. 

    Stepping back in despair, Jenna’s heart broke as she realized her friend was gone. She buried her face in her hands and watched through tearful eyes as several of the rats scurried away through every available crevice. 

    “I’m so sorry,” her voice came in a sympathetic whimper. Then came the sound of heavy footsteps and a low groan echoed across the room.  

    “Baxter?” hesitant, she paused at the noise, a flicker of hope stirring as she turned to check if her friend might still be alive. 

    In an instant, Baxter lunged forward with his arms outstretched. But his gashed arm—nicked down to the bone by ravenous rodents—and his skin, now marred by deep, gaping wounds, revealed the truth.  Jenna’s expression widened in horror as she saw that his eyes had turned into thick black puddles oozing from their corners, and drool trickled from his open mouth as he moved to bite her. 

     A bloodcurdling scream escaped her lips as the reanimated remains of her friend staggered toward her…