“There you are. That should calm you down.” Avila retreated from the cot and handed his lab technician the inhaler and his mask, both of which the tech handled with gloved hands and the abundance of caution reserved for material that represented a biohazard.
Perhaps it was the contents of the inhaler, perhaps not, but Fabi did, in fact, feel calmer. Self-loathing burned through the fear, and left only anger. She looked Avila in the eyes and somehow knew that he would not let her go. She had to find a way. Perhaps if she could get him to lower his guard.
“I don’t understand how you even made this zombie formula, or whatever it is.”
Avila grinned. “The ancestor I mentioned, Cristobal, had an encounter with zombii. From an early age I was fascinated with the story, and researching the phenomenon became one of mypassions.” He settled into a chair, a faraway look in his eyes.
He’s letting his guard down, Fabi thought. If I could only get loose. “What did you find?” she asked, trying to keep him distracted.
“I knew the scientist in you would come out eventually. I discovered that most of the reports were garbage: religious frenzy, mental illness, mind-altering drugs, brain damage, even a few cases of someone being buried alive. But in some rare cases I discovered people whose brain functioning had actually changed. The centers that control inhibitions and original thought were “turned off” for lack of a better term. I knew that this phenomenon existed in nature, with certain ants, for example, so I investigated it from a biological perspective. Those who knew the true secrets were reluctant to divulge them, but I… persuaded them. I discovered certain plants that, when used in combination, elicited this effect.”
“What’s to stop others from simply duplicating your work?”
“Fair question. We constantly work to collect all the plant material on the island and then used herbicide to eradicate anything we might miss. It is my intention to control the entire supply of the needed material.”
Fabi was running out of questions and was no closer to freeing herself. “So, you grow it here?”
“Grow, synthesize, experiment. In fact, you’re helping with one of our experiments right now.”
Fabi’s heart raced. The aerosol! “What do you mean? What did you give me?”
Avila’s grin did little to assuage Fabi’s concern, his words even less so. “We're experimenting with transferring the productivity therapy via aerosol, and it so happens that you're the first test case.”
Chapter 40
Maddock, Bones, and Willis jumped when the lights came on in the back entranceway to the house.
“Chill, it’s just motion-activated.” Willis lay a hand on Bones’ gun arm.
“I hear footsteps. Down there.” Maddock pointed to the end of the short hallway in which they found themselves. The trio of operators slipped silently to the end of the hall, Bones and Willis to the right and left, respectively, while Maddock crouched in the middle. Footsteps grew louder from the left. Willis tensed, his pistol in the ready position.
“Clear,” Bones subvocalized, letting Willis and Maddock know there were no immediate threats coming from their right side. When the guard reached the hallway, Willis reached up and pulled him in, wrestling him to the ground. What he didn’t count on was the immediate gunfire from the left side, down the hall. Someone was backing up his fellow guard.
Maddock returned fire down the hall while Willis and Bones incapacitated the other guard, binding his wrists and ankles with plastic zip-ties and relieving him of his weapon, a snub-nosed semi-automatic. When the guard was under control, Willis assumed a prone sniper position and belly-crawled to the edge of the hallway where he joined Maddock in laying down fire to the left. That guard retreated and Maddock and the others pushed forward into the hallway, to the right. They reached an open door on the left side and entered a holding cell area where zombii in different states were held. Some were more human than others, with the ability to speak, though others were mostly animals at this point with little or no capacity for independent thought. And some were in fact actual animals that Maddock recognized from their monkey encounters.
“Creepy as all get-out.” Willis eyed a monstrous ape-like form that resembled one of the largest primates they had defeated. Bones and Maddock agreed with Willis, with Maddock vowing to put an end to this experimentation when and if they got out of here with Fabi alive.
They continued on into another room that functioned as a ward of sorts, with people strapped down in cots, connected to IV drips and electronic monitor machines. They moved through this space as well, lamenting there was no time to help these individuals right now, but knowing that bringing down Avila himself would be the best thing they could do for everyone involved.
Bones tried the closed door at the opposite end of the room and found it locked, but Maddock swiped his appropriated key card and it opened. They entered yet another lab, each wondering what lengths Dr. Avila had gone to in order to develop his hideous creations. This room featured isles of lab benches stacked high with traditional chemistry equipment — ring stands, beakers, Erlenmeyer flasks, racks of test tubes — and they almost didn’t see the guard hunched over one of the benches.
He was reading a magazine, oblivious to the room’s new occupants. Willis popped up behind him and clocked him hard, but not too hard, on the neck where it joined the base of the skull. The man slumped off his bench, unconscious, and was caught by Willis before his head could crack on the concrete floor. Willis eased the man into a prostrate position and again, they relieved him of his weapons and swipe card.
Maddock was less than entirely pleased with the outcome. “Guys, we need to be able to question at least one of these guys so we can find out where Fabi is being held. Can’t knock them all out cold right away every time.”
Willis gave a sheepish look. “Sorry. Instinct, you know.”
The lab now clear of resistance with no incoming threats detected, the three of them took some time to walk around and see what they could learn. Bones moved to one area that contained grow lights hanging from the ceiling over a soil bed of various plants. He moved among them, examining them closely. He rubbed the leaves of one between his fingertips and sniffed it. “Hey, I know this one. Sassafras, My grandmother swore by this stuff.”
“Swore by it for what?” Willis wanted to know.
“Anti-inflammatory and insect bite treatment. It’s been banned in the U.S. Doesn’t surprise me that…”
A scream rent the air from somewhere outside the lab. A female scream. Bones turned and headed for the far exit, Maddock and Willis following a split second later.
“Fabi!”
Chapter 41
Maddock burst into the room at the same time as Bones, with Willis a step behind them. Fabi lay strapped to a cot while Avila stood over her with a syringe pressed to her neck.
“Stop where you are! Do not make another move or she gets it!”
Maddock froze, holding Bones and Willis back, lest emotions get the better of them, especially Bones. “Gets what?”
“This syringe contains a high concentration of potassium chloride, more than enough to stop her heart. If one of you so much as flinches, she gets the needle.”
No one spoke for a few seconds, but Avila could see the three warriors visually appraising the situation. Bones focused on Fabi while Willis inspected the room, his gaze lingering on Cassanda, who was no longer moving as she lay strapped to a cot not far from Fabi. Maddock’s eyes were fixed on the doctor himself. The cool scrutiny apparently made Avila nervous enough to want to reiterate his position.