The Beginning of An Apocalypse

Gabriel stood there in the lobby looking at all of his employees being carried off in body bags. He knew there would be possible damage and the cost of a few lives, but he didn’t know it would be to this extent. He didn’t know he would screw up this badly.

No, he didn’t screw up, they did, he told himself. They couldn’t hold him, they couldn’t keep their monster silent. It was their fault, not his, he told himself. Again and again, he told himself that.

“Sir?” George Lowe said as he walked over to him. Gabriel broke out of his thoughts and looked to his side.

“Yes?” Gabriel asked.

“We didn’t find the boy,” Lowe told him afraid of what Gabriel would do to him for this. But all that happened was Gabriel straining a smile and shaking his head. He was too angry to yell or hit or do anything.

“Of course, you didn’t,” Gabriel said. “What is the casualty count?”

“There are thirty-eight dead, sir,” Lowe said after clearing his throat. He looked down at his paper and saw the list of people that died because of today’s events. “I have all their names if you’d like to see them.”

“I don’t,” Gabriel said. “From what I saw the employees died within ten seconds of coming in contact with the boy’s touch. Is it like that for all of them?”

“From what we can see,” Lowe told him. “We are still checking security tapes and talking to the people who survived, but we are pretty sure.”

Gabriel shook his head ad walked to look at one of the bodies. He grabbed a handkerchief he had in his pocket and covered his mouth and nose. He looked at the decomposed body. It wasn’t decomposed, but it wasn’t a normal corpse. The eyes had melted in the sockets making black goo stick out from their eyes. They vomited up their charred blood and their veins turned black. Their entire body was a slimy grey.

They died in immense pain.

From what they say, it was only Marcus’s touch that had done this. They grabbed him or ran into him and they fell and died within ten seconds. No more than twenty. Some seemed to puke up every bit of blood they had left in them and some only puked up some and still died.

They didn’t know the exact cause of death, but they were going to find out.

“Find the sister, the coward will probably go run to her for help,” Gabriel said. “We need her more than we need him now. If we want to start over.”

“Sir,” Lowe said. “You want to start over with this experiment? With the boy’s sister?”

“Life does not stop because just a few are dead,” Gabriel said. “I want this under wraps. No one knows that we are responsible for this so we can continue as such. Dispose of the bodies and tell the families one of the stories that we created.”

Gabriel patted Lowe’s back and walked away. “Where are you going, sir?” Lowe asked. “We still need you down in level C. They need you.”

“And I need to get down to level FB.” That had shut Lowe up and let Gabriel do what he wanted. Gabriel grabbed his phone and called three of his most trusted and capable scientists and asked them to meet him at the elevator on the last floor that was able to any normal employee that worked there.

Gabriel jumped over the bodies and made it through the hallway to the elevator. He stood there in the elevator going over what could happen in the next few weeks. Marcus is carrying a deadly virus that kills people with a single touch. He is scared and a child. Marcus would run into the public to look for his sister would cause more deaths.

Gabriel saw the way Marcus’s body was changing. His eyes were going grey and would possibly be dark soon. His body was hot and feverish, he was sweating and he was in pain. Like he was on fire.

He’d seen similar symptoms, but not to this extent

Gabriel found his way to the guarded door that was level FB. He waited only two more minutes before five other scientists came down, one of them had a body bag of one of Marcus’s victims in it.

“Good,” Gabriel said. Gabriel walked past the guards and to the doors that were triple locked and made of Tungsten, the strongest metal on earth. He didn’t know if it would keep out someone like Marcus, but he had to hope.

Gabriel scanned his eye and his fingerprint. Once his fingerprint scan turned green a small panel in the door opened up and he put in another code. Security was of utmost importance.

Gabriel turned and saw the guards checking every one of the scientist’s IDs. Gabriel let them even though he already knew there was no problem. The number one problem he saw was when people steal workers’ outfits and try to sneak in. That’s why he, as well as everyone else that worked here, knew who everyone was. It didn’t matter if the person was a janitor or not, Gabriel wasn’t going to have something so cliche brings him down.

Once everyone was through security they all walked down the darkened hallway. Only a few people come down to this level. And that is in the morning and at night to make sure everything was in order.

The only people who were supposed to go down there were to bring food and water. Not that many of the things down there ate anything. Not that he himself had been dow

He pushed himself to walk through the darkened halls of this floor. He passed the empty rooms that they kept for the what-ifs. The rooms were used to store many results of failed tests or things that couldn’t exactly be brought to light. At least until it was needed.

“Which one is it again?” Gabriel asked himself not looking for an answer.

“Room 374,” one of the scientists told him. Gabriel rolled his eyes, but he started looking for Room 374.

He walked past every other number until he found room 374. The room was the biggest out of every other room in this hall. It was more secure and especially, guarded.

“Has it said anything?” Gabriel asked one of the guards that stood there.

“No,” the guard, Link said. “It just rants and walks around in circles. Vomiting up its guts.”

“Good,” Gabriel said, it wasn’t doing anything different. Normally, that would be a bad thing but everything down here was almost a lost cause and he saw no reason to keep going with them.

Gabriel pushed both Link and the guard, Sal out of the way. He put in the code only he knew and scanned his fingerprint and the door opened. The door opened to another glass box with holes spread out throughout it so that the thing could breathe.

He didn’t want to call it a human anymore, it wasn’t… human. It was test subject 7032, Seventy for short.

“What do you want?” The thing asked from inside the glass box. Seventies voice sounded like it had knives inside its throat and it was cutting up the words every time it spoke.

“I’m hoping to talk,” Gabriel told the thing he created. “It’s time I find out how to kill you.”

Seventy smiled and rested its head back. Is few strands of hair fall off its head. Its own body has all but given up on it. It was mostly bald with a few strong strands hanging down. The thing’s eyes were completely black and Gabriel learned that if you poke the black eyes, they pop and leak black goo.

“Does it have anything to do–” Seventy plunged forward to the toilet that was placed in there. Seventy vomited up more of the black goo that seemed to take up its entire body now. Seventy wiped its mouth and looked up at Gabriel. “--With what I heard up there. The screams?”

“It does not concern you,” Gabriel told him without much reason. “I just need to reopen your case and find out a way to kill you.”

Seventy laughed. Seventies cold slimy black-veined grey skin hand covered its mouth. Seventy laughed a little too hard that he ended up spitting out more black goo. “Y-you tried this again didn’t you?” The thing got up and walked to the glass door. Seventy pressed its hands up against them. “You are stupid. You did this again, some-some poor person is out there dying right now. And you’re…” It pointed straight between Gabriel’s eyes. “You’re scared.”

“What I am and am not is not for your time,” Gabriel said. “These scientists are going to be with you all day and figure out what kills you.”

“Great!” It said. “You know I want to die, thanks to you.” It looked back at the scientists that were suiting up in big white radioactive suits as if it would help them. It wouldn’t help them, only delay the inevitable. They were relying mainly on the thing inside this cage of glass and metal would comply.

“I’m just curious,” Seventy said. “What did you say to this idiot to get them to experiment.”

“It is not of your concern,” Gabriel said. “Focus on helping them kill you.”

“Did you tell him about the thousands that died already because of this? Did you tell him that the odds of becoming like me were 98 out of 100? Did you make up the excuse this was for cancer or disease? Yeah, your disease.”

Seventy laughed again and instead of pointing to Gabriel’s forehead, seventy pointed to Gabriel’s heart. “Yeah, I know how sick you are. You and your greed, I can smell it.”

“My greed is what keeps me here and I gladly have it.” Gabriel looked over at the scientists. “I want something new by the end of tomorrow. Give them to me or I will have to fire you and get people more equipped to do your job.”

Gabriel looked at the thing inside the cage one more time before he turned his back to walk away. He closed the door behind him and told the guards to call him if the scientists ever called for him. With that, he left back upstairs. To what he needed to focus on now.

“Sir!” Lowe shouted once Gabriel made it to the lobby. He was stopped from getting to his elevator and his office. Gabriel looked over at Lowe who ran over looking like he had something. Not something big, Gabriel didn’t think.

“Yes?” Gabriel asked.

“We found some of the kids… vomit or blood along one of the interstate roads. He’s heading back into the city it seems.”

“That won’t be good,” Gabriel said to himself. “Millions of people will die.” Gabriel wanted to assure himself by saying that maybe he’d be dead by dawn or be too weak to say anything, but he wasn’t sure. It’s different for everyone who took this experiment. Some died instantly, some felt like they were on fire, some went blind, others… They melted almost.

Gabriel had to assume that this time the test subject wasn’t going to die or go deaf or mute. He had to know that he had to find that boy and kill him before he ever got the chance to ever say what happened to him. Before the entire world knew about it and knew what Gabriel was doing.

“Get everyone out there you know and find that kid,” Gabriel said. “Shoot him down, kidnap him, do anything to get him back here. But do not touch him and do not get this all over the news. Understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Lowe said. “I will have my team go find him and bring him back with as few casualties and witnesses as possible.”

“No witnesses, I don’t care about your team.” Gabriel watched the elevator door open and he got in. He pressed his floor and looked back at Lowe. “Well. Go!”

“Ah, yes, of course, sir” Lowe gave a nod and he grabbed his walkie-talkie to go coordinate with his team to plan what they were going to do. How they were going to find Marcus and how they were going to get rid of him.

They could get him easily if he hadn’t made it into the city yet, if he had, then there will be problems. The population of San Francisco is 815,201 and how much of that population will he come in contact with in one day?

Gabriel left it to them. If the world saw him trying to get the kid Marcus he would be held responsible. Everyone would know he did this. He started what could easily become the apocalypse. The end of the human race as we know it.

Without a way to kill the virus or disease or even the person who carries it, the virus will kill everyone in its path. Unless they can get Marcus back and contain him, Gabriel didn’t have a lot of hope for Lowe to complete his mission.

Lowe was helpful in many situations, but he wasn’t smart.

And if he screwed this up then his stupidity would be the thing to get him killed. And then soon, they would all be dead too. Or arrested and his work would be in the light of the public eye. Gabriel could manage his experiments failing. He could stand the world knowing about it. But he could not stand the world doing something about it. He could not stand someone trying to stop him.

The only thing he knew that was stronger than anything in this entire world was that he needed to get this done.

And he would do whatever he had to do to do so.