Endurance (13 page)

Tom’s viewing
stopped as he heard someone unlock the door and enter the room. He
held his gun, paused the footage, and turned quickly to see Lucy
standing at the door.

‘
Have you
watched it then?’ Lucy said.

‘
Yes, I
fucking have. Why didn’t you help me? Me, you and Danni could have
overpowered them in here.’

‘
Tom, they
threatened to kill me and my family if I said anything to you. I
had to play along, I’m so sorry.’ Lucy began to cry. ‘I am truly
sorry.’

‘
Were you
part of this film, or were you helping them all the
time?’

‘
I was part
of it for a day, then they took me out because I reached the wall
of the replica. The hovercrafts were going to kill me, but they
didn’t. They must have had plans for all this to happen. They must
have known I’m a trained nurse, and that I could help them with the
infected.’

‘
Did you
watch me?’

‘
Yes.’ Lucy
paused as she stared at Tom’s scarred face. ‘I did, day and
night.’

‘
Did you want
me to survive?’

‘
Yes. Of
course I did, Tom.’

‘
So you
wanted me to survive. You wanted me to come back as a disabled man
for the rest of my life. You wanted this experience to fucking scar
my whole entire body?’

‘
Tom, no, I
didn’t know that was going to happen. None of us did. I wanted you
to survive because you mean so much to me and…’

‘
Who spoke to
me on the radio then? When I went to my house, I found the radio
and got frequency, who was saying that it was the government’s
doing and London was shut for refurbishments?’

Lucy paused
as she looked at Tom’s face. His enflamed skin covered his left eye
and the rest of his face was covered in severe burn scars. ‘I knew
the signal had to be intercepted. You caused a lot of panic. As
they intercepted the signal, you spoke to Miller. It was Miller who
you spoke to on the radio and he lied to you.’

It was all
scripted. So much thorough work and years of planning.

‘
We need to
get out of here. Where’s Danni?’

‘
She’s in the
lab. Tom, there’s something I need to tell you and you need to
believe me. This drug they’re using. It gives people adrenalin and
seems to keep people alive. It seems to revive their hearts. Anna
was dead, but when the drug was injected into her, she came back to
life after a while.’

‘
I know. I
saw her in the corridor earlier.’

‘
Also, Dan is
here in the lab too, and Stewart. But they’re both dying. They
aren’t as strong as Anna. They were going to bring Ken back, but
they couldn’t find his body.’

‘
So how was
Anna not killed in the explosion?’

‘
The body
hanging upside down wasn’t Anna. That was her twin sister Anna
never met.’

‘
What? Anna
knew her family well.’

‘
They were
separated at birth. All her family were involved in this experiment
and they all died. We don’t have time for this. Danni escaped once,
but now she’s been tied down and locked in a testing room in the
lab. I went to her room and loosened the locks on her wrists so she
should be able to get out, the only problem is I don’t know how
long it’ll take for her to escape this time.’

As Lucy
finished her sentence, a deafening siren began to sound.

‘
That must be
her now. Come on let’s go.’ Lucy grabbed Tom’s hand but Tom pulled
away.

‘
Lucy, no
offence but I don’t trust you. Let’s just get out of here and we’ll
talk properly.’

Lucy nodded
and exited the room. As she did, a gun was pointed at her head. Tom
paused in his spot, as did Lucy. They stood waiting, someone pulled
the trigger. Lucy’s head exploded, her brains splattered on the
wall behind her. Her body hit the floor.

Smith walked
through door and pointed his gun at Tom.

‘
Get on the
fucking floor,’ Smith shouted.

Tom put his
hands up and slowly knelt on the ground. Smith walked up to him and
knocked Tom over the head with his gun. Blackness
prevailed.

15

Danni hid
behind the bed she was tied to. She looked up as a man in a white
gown shot at her. The bullets sparked off the metal framing of the
bed; the mattress was covered in bullet holes.

Danni was
trapped. She looked to her left and right and saw only white walls.
There was nothing to use as a weapon. Danni looked under her bed
and noticed the wheels of the bed were locked; she saw the lever
within her reach. She unlocked the wheels and moved the bed, lining
it up with the man in the doorway. She charged at him, pushing the
bed as hard as she could into him. He shot wildly. The bed forced
him out of the small room and into the main lab.

As he smashed
into a work unit, glass beakers smashed and the liquid contained
within burned his skin. He squealed in pain. The liquids spurted
onto the floor and created a misty haze.

The
scientists in the lab looked around alertly. In fear, one of the
scientists ran to the wall and pressed a red button setting off a
deafening siren.

Danni
crouched behind a unit and watched as the scientists exited the
lab, except for a middle-aged woman, who put a mask over her mouth
and pulled out an automatic gun. Danni looked at the unit to her
left and took one of the gas masks and put it over her
face.

The scientist
who had been pushed into the liquid had completely changed. His
veins turned aggressive, his skin looked sore, the inside of his
mouth turned from normal to dead and black.

Danni looked
up from behind the counter; both the woman and Miller shot at her.
She decided to sneak along the line of worktops. As Danni crawled
along the floor, she opened drawers built into the worktops looking
for a weapon of some sort. As she opened drawers, glass beakers
smashed and scattered on the floor and onto Danni. The desktops’
surface was scuffed and carved from each bullet fired at
Danni.

She opened a
drawer and found a handgun. She grabbed the gun, jumped up and shot
at the woman. The woman ducked down and Miller shot at Danni,
hitting only the worktop and the liquids on it.

‘
Get out of
here Miller. Get to Tom, we can’t let him escape.’ The woman
shouted to Miller.

‘
Okay. Sarah,
Kill her.’ Miller shouted back.

‘
Just go get
my son.’ Sarah bellowed.

Miller made a
run for the door. Danni tried to stop him; she jumped up to shoot
him. Miller shot back and Sarah shot, her bullet skimmed Danni’s
arm and peeled her skin. Danni let out a cry and ducked back
down.

Miller got to
the door and left the room. The door locked and the lights began to
flicker.

Danni counted
the bullets in the gun. She had two left. She looked at her arm as
blood trickled out of the wound.

As Danni
moved along the worktop, she saw three people banging on the glass.
The pupils in their eyes were red and their skin was dark and
dingy. Blood covered most of their bodies.

Danni looked
above the worktop; and Sarah shot at her. This time, she didn’t
stop shooting. She smashed all the glass beakers containing
liquids. The glass shattered and fragments of glass spread across
the room. The liquid clung to the specks of glass and splattered
onto the floor.

Sarah’s gun
clicked. It was finally empty. Danni jumped, shot once and missed,
hitting the glass wall behind her. She shot again and hit Sarah’s
shoulder. Sarah screamed in pain and collapsed onto the
floor.

Danni threw
her empty gun on the floor and looked around. The flickering lights
chillingly assisted the infected. As the infected charged into the
room, they ran straight to Danni. Each time the lights flickered,
the infected eerily came closer to Danni. Their red eyes were
filled with anger and their bodies slouched.

Danni
prepared to fight a medium built male, whose name tag read Dan
Maguire. She was distracted when she was grabbed from behind and
thrown onto the desk face-first. The smashed glass grated her
cheeks. She was then thrown into the glass wall head first, making
her dizzy.

As she looked
up from the ground, the flickering light showed the scientist she
pushed into the worktop using the bed, looking down at her. His
skin was black and his eyes were bloody red. Blood dripped from his
eyes. The veins on his face were black. He smiled at her, revealing
his yellow stubbed teeth.

Suddenly,
bullet holes appeared in his chest and he fell against the glass
wall and slid onto the ground. Danni pulled herself off the ground
to see Sarah shooting all the infected.

Each shot
created enough light to see her wrinkled face and dry grey hair.
Her shrivelled lips were clenched together tightly. Her top teeth
were biting her bottom lip, and her thin veined arms held a
handgun, firing at the infected.

Danni looked
at the scientist’s dead body. She leaned over and stole his swipe
card from his outside pocket where it displayed his identification.
She looked at the door and looked back at Sarah who was surrounded
by the infected.

As Danni
turned to run, she was stopped by Anna who stood in front of her.
She didn’t look like the other infected. Her skin was loose, it
hung off her arm revealing bone. Her cheek was missing, revealing
her dried up, black tongue and yellow and black-stubbed teeth. Anna
showed no emotion and grabbed Danni by the neck. She clenched her
neck tightly. Her bony fingers dug into Danni’s skin. Blood
trickled out of her neck. Danni forced Anna’s hands off her neck
and threw her onto the worktop and continued to run for the
door.

As she
reached the door, she swiped the card and the door
opened.

‘
You can’t
leave me.’ Sarah shrieked at Danni. ‘Help me.’

Danni looked
at Sarah who held two handguns. Danni hesitated, but walked out the
door. She let the door slide shut and watched as Sarah turned and
continued screaming and shouting at Danni. Only her mouth moved.
Danni could hear the muffled gunshots coming from the
room.

16

‘
Drop the gun
and leave Tom on the ground.’ Miller bellowed at Smith.

‘
He’s scum;
we need to kill him now.’

‘
He’s the
experiment, which is ongoing. You’re ruining it. It wasn’t in the
script to tie him to a chair and punch and kick the shit out of
him, was it? Let me put his leg back on. We need to get out of
here, we are all infected.’

‘
What do you
mean?’

‘
His
girlfriend decided to break out of her room and cause mayhem in the
lab. All the liquids have been destroyed. This is going to go
airborne.’

‘
Shit.’

Smith lowered
his gun and walked away from Tom’s severely beaten body. Tom lay
sprawled on the ground. A wooden chair had been shattered on the
ground next to him. His prosthetic leg was on the table and his
face was swollen and bloody.

Miller took
Tom’s leg and began to reattach it to his thigh.

‘
What the
fuck are we going to do if it’s gone airborne?’ Smith asked
anxiously.

‘
It has gone
airborne. I will have to make multiples of the cure.’

‘
I thought
you said the cure doesn’t work?’

‘
It does for
some people. For the people it doesn’t cure, I don’t know, they’ll
just have to be killed.’

Miller pulled
Tom up from the ground. Tom wearily stood, swaying on his feet.
Smith pulled his gun and aimed at Tom’s head.

‘
Fuck sake,
Smith. Drop the gun.’

‘
This
experiment is fucked up. It’s failed. This isn’t the London replica
anymore and definitely isn’t just an Endurance test. It finishes
her, Mike.’

Miller pulled
his gun and aimed it at Smith. He bellowed, ‘Drop it!’

Smith’s
finger rested on the trigger. His hand began to shake, his eyes
tightened and his eyebrows lowered. Miller pulled the trigger and
shot Smith in the head. Smith fell, shooting once into the
ceiling.

Danni stood
in the doorway. Tom looked at her with relief. Miller pointed his
gun at her.

‘
Stay there.
You’ve done enough. It’s gone airborne so we need to work together
to make this work.’

Danni entered
the room.

‘
Stay there!’
Miller yelled.

Danni
continued to walk and Miller’s finger rested on the trigger. As his
finger tightened, Tom attacked Miller and forced him onto a
table.

Tom grabbed
the gun and threw it in Danni’s direction. Danni picked it up and
looked at the bullets.

‘
You need
me.’ Miller said to Tom.

‘
No, we
don’t.’

Tom released
his grip on Miller and walked toward Danni. Miller launched himself
off the table and pulled out two syringes with liquid inside.
Miller alternately stuck the syringes in either side of Tom’s neck
and injected the liquid. Tom paused pulled the syringes out of his
neck. Miller stumbled back and fell onto the desk with the CCTV
footages playing.