Chapter 2

"The massacre"

Cherri was still young—mostly considered very young for her job—when she got the job to work at the Island Laboratory. Since it was still break time, she sat by the Plexiglas panels on the laboratory's botanical zone staring at the sight of the ocean and jungle below. It slowly began to remind her of being a child and staring off the cliffs of Okinawa with her parents. The memories of seeing the wildlife fly off along with the whales out by the coast—of course she was too young to know what the were.

"Whales, and the pecalins!" the faint child voice yelled out.

"Pelicans honey, not Pecalins." She loved Pecalins.

But now the memory of her parents was just a fading one that still stuck in the back of her mind. The sound of the workers below was almost omitted with the sight ahead of her. One of the electricians below—Mark Andrews—quickly yelled up to her in order to get her attention. He looked a bit disheveled from a possible hang over after a party in the zone last night. Cherri remembered it well because she had a couple of beers with Mark's friends Jon and Jane. Of course now it would have been considered illegal because she was barely twenty. Her degree in chemical physics at Harvard was just enough to land her the opportunity of a life time while also costing her career.

"Hello? Cherri, is that you?" Mark asked with a simple yell.

"Do you need some," Cherri said before coughing, "Do you need something?"

"I'm going to have to move this scaffold, so you might have to get off."

"Ok!"

Cherri stood up and took one final glance at the ocean before stepping onto the first rung of the ladder. Beautiful, it's amazing—get to work. Before taking a step, she moved her feet and hands to the side of the ladder to slide the way down. The wind blasting through her hair felt good since naturally felt really hot in the botanical zone. Mark stepped aside as Cherri made a rough landing on the ground. She immediately fell back onto the grass before trying to get off the ground.

"Come on, get up." Mark said as he held out his hand.

He quickly helped Cherri off the ground and walked over to the scaffold to retract it. Cherri dusted off her back before running her hands through her hair once more.

"How long have you really been here?" Mark asked.

"About six or seven months. I used to work at Perfect Body Industries before they went bankrupt over some big accident. I felt good there because I developed one of the fastest weight lost chemicals known to man." Cherri replied.

"G-20987? I heard about that in the Washington Post. I don't believe it."

"It was real, we just lost it. But I never really did get to finish it, so now I'm here working in this place. It's nice."

"Sort of is, actually."

"Something about sitting in a dark laboratory in the middle of the Pacific makes it better than sitting in a dark laboratory in New York."

They both laughed, which kind of seemed a little creepy since Mark didn't laugh much. He pressed the switch on the scaffold to cause it to retract back to the ground.

"You could have told me you were bringing it down so that I didn't have to climb." Cherri said as she watched it lower.

"You never asked!" Mark replied.

Cherri smiled before noticing a green light pop up on the wall to the left. Mark looked up at it and quickly noticed a couple of scientists in the room reaching up to their ear pieces. They quickly left the room while Cherri tried to make sense of what was going on. It seemed a bit odd since Mark hadn't ever seen this happen before.

"Do you know what that's all about?" Mark asked.

"If I'm correct, Green lights usually mean possible theft or minor accident. It's normally guarded. From what I remember, the light will turn off if it's just a mistake or go on to yellow." Cherri said before walked off towards the door. "It might be safe if were out in the hallways in case someone tries to perform a minor lockdown."

"It sounds better than getting locked in."

Cherri was the first to leave the zone, so her natural response was to let a couple of custodians leave. Mark walked out last and reached for a cigarette out of his front pocket.

"Smoking is bad for you." Cherri added.

"So is drinking, but that never stopped you from downing three last night." Mark replied.

"Ok, you got me."

The light turned yellow and lit up the hallway. Cherri felt a little scared because she had never seen the light go this high. Mark scratched his head and ignored even trying to light up a cigarette.

"I don't know what's happening. This isn't normally supposed to happen. So I guess that there must be something more than a theft." Cherri said.

Cherri signaled for him to follow her as she began to move down the hallway to the next room. Everybody else cleared out of the area as a gunshot was heard in the distance. Mark was starting to feel really paranoid, so he had to get more information.

"What happens if the light goes red?" Mark asked before the light did so. "I spoke to soon."

"Warning, this is not a drill. Security Breach is imminent. The system will lock down in three minutes." The voice on the loud speaker said.

Cherri started to run now because she wasn't exactly sure what was going on now. Mark didn't exactly have any where to go, so his natural response was to follow Cherri towards wherever she was going. A couple of scientists running by tripped in front of them while the loud speaker began to play messages. Cherri and mark didn't understand them since they weren't focusing on it. The two made it to the Isolation Chamber just seconds before the next message.

"Outbreak level is now at Forty Percent and rising." The voice said.

"Have we been experimenting with bacteria?" Mark asked.

"I don't know. I guess they had another department I've never seen. Come on, we need to get into the Isolation chamber before it gets worse." Cherri replied.

"No way am I locking myself in. Screw that."

"Just do it before we die! Aren't you worried about living after this?"

"It might not be that bad."

As soon as he made the remark two people shoved them into the door before closing it behind them. They were both men, possibly much older than Mark, but they were being hasty. Everybody fell onto the floor and caused a huge mess from where supplies were knocked over.

"We need to get inside that chamber." The man said after standing up.

"Who are you?" Mark asked.

"The name is Zach, and this is Leo. We don't have time to bicker, so let's get into that chamber before it's too late." The man said.

"We can't get into the chamber yet. The machine requires us to be cleansed before hand or it will try to kill us to stop infection from spreading." Cherri said as she helped Mark up.

"No, I want out. I'm not going inside of that chamber." Mark said.

"Man, we don't have much time. We need to hurry up and get inside of that chamber." Leo added.

They all looked around the room and noticed only four booths in the room with PT clothes. Cherri walked over to one of the booths inside of the room and quickly stripped down to get changed into the required PT clothing. Zach felt as if he had to, so he quickly did the same along with Leo. Mark held his head before walking into the last booth to get changed.

"I really don't want to get locked in here." Mark said.

Nobody responded as they changed out. As soon as they were done, they pressed buttons near the bottom of the booth to be cleansed with gas. There was a slight burning sensation on Cherri's skin from where the bacteria on her flesh began to pop. The gas was thin so it only took a minute for it to clear. The next thing she scratched off the list was to grab some food supplies from the cabinets in case.

"Ok, I've never used this thing before." Cherri said as she approached the tunnel.

Five security guards slammed at the door behind them with rifles trying to get in. Cherri was shocked by the sight while at the time Zach began to panic.

"Fuck it, let's go!" Zach yelled as soon as he grabbed Cherri's arm.

"Come on or well never have a second chance!" Leo yelled before grabbing onto Mark's shirt.

The four quickly ran down the long tunnel as soon as the guards got in. Cherri looked back and saw one of the guards fire towards her. The shot grazed her arm—that gave her the impression they weren't shooting at her. At this time, she really didn't care because she was too terrified. The shot distracted her and she ended up tripping over her own feet. Just then the five guards entered the tunnel and set off an alarm. A yellow beam of light started at the very entrance of the tunnel and began to move upwards towards Cherri.

"Bacterium detected." The voice said aloud.

The entrance to the tunnel shut directly on one of the guard's hands, so now it was time to move. Zach helped Cherri up off the ground and practically carried her inside of the Isolation chamber before it closed. As they sat tight, Cherri felt horrified when the entrance of the tunnel closed tightly enough that it severed the guard's hand from his arm. Blood spewed out of the wound at uncontrollable rates while the guard closest to the entrance hit the door once with his rifle—which did no good. As soon as he did that, the light passed through. Yellow gas began to rise out of the floor and towards the ceiling of the tunnel.

"Open the door." The guard yelled, or at least what Cherri was able to decipher.

The glass had completely been sound proofed so now she could only read lips from the guard banging at the door. The guard with the severed hand saw nothing but foam spray out of his wound before his lungs began to give out. A stream of foamy vomit shot from his mouth and onto the ground which lead up to a burning sensation in his mouth. In a few seconds, his flesh literally became liquefied and started to peel from his body. Everything went blurry and he fell. Something continued to tell Cherri to look away, but she was too shocked to even move. In the back, the next two guards fell to the ground. The first hit the ground so hard that his body flew apart and liquefied. One of them happened to brace himself on his hands and knees before hitting the ground, but it didn't help. His hands began to slip around with all the deteriorating flesh acting as lube and soon a cloud of gas covered him. When it cleared, Cherri saw all of his insides contained into his torso slip out on the ground before he fell.

His lungs flatten out while his intestines splattered onto the floor and curled up into foam. It looked like a pile of worms' just seconds later. Mark heard her scream—it was pitiful—so he quickly pulled her away while she began to cry out in fear over the horrible sight. There were only two remaining now. The first tried to walk but he felt his legs split in two, causing him to fall and slide across the floor. His deteriorating flesh made the floor like gory slid and slide. The impact caused his head to flatten—leaving nothing but foamy brains and blood on the ground. The last guard was only visible beating at the door while the tissue on his skin slipped off like goop. All of the white on his eyes began to leak out like tears before being trailed by blood. The flesh on his face leaked off to reveal his muscular face and un-protected eyes. The guard screamed before slamming his head into the glass pane. In just a few seconds his body slipped off and left some remains of gooey flesh and the imprint of what was once a male face. Screams filled the room only to be followed by fear.

"That was the sickest fucking thing I have ever seen!" Leo yelled over the screaming.

"Everybody outside wont stop screaming! What's happening?" Cherri cried.

Mark held her close as she continued to cry and scream. He had to tell her that things just weren't as they were supposed to be. She was hearing things now.

"Cherri," Mark said with a tear in his eye, "nobody outside is screaming. It's been you all along…"