By Al Bruno III
0:00
This account is intended for anyone who might unearth this research center. I've configured the computer's audio system to record whenever I speak or make a sound. The hard drive has enough space for thirty-six hours of audio. That should be all I need.
Since Mission Control does not respond, I can only surmise that they, too, have been compromised.
My name is Professor Ray Hengel. I leave our data and this audio journal in the hope that it will somehow aid whoever finds this place.
I am the only remaining member of our research contingent. There were twelve of us at the start: a gathering of forensic specialists, neurologists, biologists, chemists, toxicologists, and a pair of military consultants. We also had twenty-five infected cadavers to work with.
I prefer the term *infected cadaver* to the appellation the media is using: zombie. It brings to mind the stuff of cheap horror films and primitive superstition. If you take nothing else from my chronicle, dear listener, know this: this is a problem that can only be solved by science.
Our assignment was to find some way to stop the walking undead before they swept humanity aside. There were many early successes for our group. We determined that the source of the infected cadaver outbreak was not caused by the wrath of a vengeful God, witchcraft, voodoo, or something equally ludicrous. The source of the outbreak was radiation, radiation carried on the back of a comet, much as fleas carried the plague from one unsuspecting host to another centuries ago.
The tragedy here is that we failed to realize the power of said radiation, the sheer scope of its reconstitutive abilities. Our procedures were as simple as they were methodical. At the beginning of every week, we would pull one of the infected cadavers from cold storage and begin a protracted series of tests. We analyzed everything from their hair to their basal ganglia, and we were beginning to gain some understanding of how the radiation had animated previously lifeless tissue.
I am utterly certain that, had disaster not befallen us, we would have found a way to stop this nightmare from unfolding any further.
No, wait. I have so little time, and I still haven't explained the purpose of this audio record. You see, I was bitten on the right hand, in the fleshy web between the thumb and index finger. The force of the bite was sufficient to fracture the first and second metacarpals. A considerable amount of skin and underlying muscle tissue was torn away in the process. I've kept the wound wrapped in bandages until now. I'm going to unwrap it and examine the damage.
Fascinating. The bleeding has ceased, but the tissue surrounding the wound is darkening, almost like an abrasion on the surface of a piece of overripe fruit. I briefly probed the area with a scalpel and discovered a spreading purulence. It resembled pus, although it possessed a peculiar reddish-black coloration.
More troubling was its consistency. The substance was threaded with countless fine, branching filaments, resembling fungal hyphae or the fibrous growth of certain primitive plant organisms. I've never encountered anything quite like it.
Is this how the infection will eventually supplant my central nervous system? I wonder what effect it will have on the higher brain functions.
I wonder.
One of my fellow scientists, a garrulous little man named Wilkins, kept a cache of liquor in his rooms. I think I could use a drink. Several drinks, in fact.
1:59
It appears that I will not be having that drink after all. I suppose this explains my lack of appetite as well.
Mere moments after taking a sip from the box of wine Wilkins kept under his bed, I found myself wracked with nausea. At first, I attributed this loss of self-control to the low-quality swill I had foolishly imbibed, but as my retching metamorphosed into a bout of dry heaves, I began to realize that something far more malignant was at work.
I made my way to the battlefield that had once been our cafeteria and tried to see if I could keep down a pair of crackers and a glass of water. If anything, the resulting illness was even more prolonged and terrible. Just speaking about it makes me want to be sick all over again.
Much like rabies, it appears that the infection causes the sufferer's digestive system to reject all nourishment. I wonder if that is why the affected cadavers must feast upon living flesh.
7:39
Woke with a fever. 103, I think. It's hard to tell; my eyes are blurry. I kept dreaming of my loved ones. My wife, my parents, my—
Never mind. Such sentimental drivel doesn't exactly pertain to my thesis, does it?
To the point. Approximately nine hours after contracting the infection, I find myself feverish. There is a slight ringing in my ears, and I am ravenously hungry. The discoloration around the bite has spread down my fingers and up my forearm as far as the heads of the radius and ulna. They resemble dark threads working their way toward my heart.
My father died of a heart attack. I wonder if this will feel similar.
My hand occasionally clenches of its own volition. It's like watching a laboratory rat in its death throes.
8:28
...stupid, really. We should have realized. We should have taken better precautions.
I pieced together what had happened by reviewing the security tapes. Those two researchers never got the chance to dispose of anything. They were vivisecting one of the infected corpses. They had immobilized it by first strapping it to the table and then amputating its limbs and lower jaw. They extracted the infected cadaver's organs, took samples, and weighed them.
This was not simple sadism at work. We did this to determine whether the various nerve agents we were testing were having any effect at all. Besides, our main concern was testing and studying the infected cadavers' artificially stimulated nervous systems. Those excess tissues merely got in the way.
They threw the discarded tissues into a container. Then, when everything that could be learned about the infected cadaver had been learned, the organs and the still-struggling torso were taken to the incinerator for disposal.
We should have guessed. I should have guessed that the neural matrix created by the alien radiation would not subscribe to the patterns of behavior exhibited by Earthly life forms. This neural matrix was multi-tiered (dare I say, holographic?) in nature. Unfettered by the powerful neurological impulses that ordinarily governed them, the discarded tissues somehow adapted themselves to operate on a fundamentally different level.
Like a planarian worm, which can regenerate an entire organism from a fragment.
And it looked something like a giant worm attacking when the infected cadaver's small intestine looped itself around one of the researchers and dragged him screaming into the fetid trash barrel.
The other researcher then made the mistake of fleeing the room, leaving the door open.
What happened next was like a butcher shop comedy. Somehow, that infected cadaver, or rather what remained of it, managed to free its monstrous kin from cold storage. Whether this was through dumb luck or an intelligence that had previously gone unnoticed, I can't say.
By the time we realized what was going on, we were being overrun.
9:31
The ringing in my ears is getting louder. I can't stop sweating. The black lines have spread all the way to my chest. It feels as though there's a fist in there, slowly squeezing my lungs.
My stomach is aching with hunger, but everything I've tried to eat, everything from ice cubes to raw hamburger, refuses to stay down. At this rate, I'll dehydrate before I succumb to the infection itself. Perhaps that's a mercy.
If, by some miracle, Caroline Majors is still alive and a message can be delivered to her, tell her... tell her I was thinking of her.
10:37
...Nuh... not want... Nuh... can't... Jesus! Don't want to die... not like this... not like this... Nuh...
18:07
It's a miracle! A miracle! No more fever. The discoloration on my hand is fading, and I can move my fingers again. Not as well as I used to, but still. Perhaps the human autoimmune system does have a way to combat the infection. I must see if I can contact the government!
But first, I'm going to record my vital statistics and take a blood sample. Any information I can gather might be useful. The cure could be in my white blood cells, just waiting to be released.
19:07
My breathing was nothing more than a reflex action. I let my exuberance get the better of me. It doesn't make any sense! Why am I still here? Why am I still talking?
20:18
The fever was bad. Worse than I ever expected. It killed me. You hear me talking, but I'm an infected cadaver now. The brain dies last, like a fish in a tank nobody cleans.
21:02
Stabbed me self—No! Myself! Stabbed myself in tummy. Blood, but no pain. I like that. No pain, but still here. Falling apart like... falling apart...
I'm going to get one of the guns off one of the military soldiers that died in the cafeteria. Shot to the head always works... scientifically proven...
22:24
The soldier lying on his back, arms out like Jesus. And Jesus say, "Take and eat; this is my body." So I did. It was cold, and it filled my belly, but then it came out through the holes I made. Maybe that's why I'm still hungry...
26:12
...God, why? God, why? God, why?...
34:32
...they're huuuuhhh... muh-ore soldiers... huhhhhh... suh-hoon... uhm... stuh-ill in muh muhnd buh-ut I can't stuh-stop! suh huh-ungry... uh-all uh huh-ave luh-ft is thu huh-unger...
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