Kenn Crawford - Dead Hunt

Michael had run from room to room in a violent rage, beheading, hacking and killing everything in his path. He knew they were already dead; he’d just been making sure they acted dead and did not get back up. Now, as he looked around at the bloodshed, the memories of the rampage sickened him. He wondered if he would ever tell Lucy of his zombie massacre. Probably not.

With her face still buried in his chest, Michael navigated Lucy out into the hallway and down the stairs to the ground level. Lucy allowed herself to see where they were going but still let him put his protective arms around her.

“Now I really need to go shopping,” she said as she looked at the rear of her blood-soaked pants.

“You could go naked,” Michael grinned brazenly.

“You wish!,” Lucy laughed as he disappeared into a room, reemerging with some hospital scrubs a moment later.

She wasn’t sure why a lab like this needed scrubs, but she didn’t really care, they looked and smelled clean. As they walked to the lab, Lucy noticed that a huge desk blocked the opening where the steel security door came out of the wall. If Robin was going to lock this place down again, Michael had made sure he decided on which side of the steel wall he wanted to be on. Michael was thinking of everything, but she still didn’t know why he distrusted Robin so much.

“Good morning, Lucy,” Robin said as they entered the laboratory.

“Hi,” was all she could squeeze out.

“Tell her what you told me,” Michael barked. It was not like Michael to be so demanding.

Robin looked from Michael to Lucy and began, “Everyone makes mistakes. Some are small, some are bigger. My father’s mistake, born of an innocent heart, fueled by sadness, was the greatest mistake. Some thought the death of his little girl drove him to the point of insanity. Some thought he was trying to be God. But this is not how it happened. The truth is he wanted to save me. To give me life. And, in doing so, everyone was doomed.”

“I’m heartbroken,” Lucy scoffed. “What does that have to do with us?”

“As you know, Lucy,” Robin explained, “Michael has been bitten by an infected person, and, as such, has become infected himself. He will die.” Lucy’s eyes saddened as reality hit home just a little bit deeper. She knew Robin was a computer, but still she sounded so cold. “I can, however, instruct Michael on how to make an antivirus,” Robin added.

“That’s great!” Lucy said, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

“There is one condition,” Robin explained. “I have discovered through various government agencies that they will be bombing this island in a hope to purge the virus.”

“How did you find that out?” Lucy asked.

Michael leaned down and informed Lucy, “She neglected to tell us that she monitors a few hundred radio stations, short wave transmissions, and encrypted signals through smaller satellite receivers on the roof.”

“Satellite? Then we could have rigged that to…” Michael put his finger to her lips to silence her. Damn, he did it again.

“Remember the cellar,” he mouthed.

“The initial bombing will fail,” Robin announced. “When it does, they will most likely obliterate this island completely.”

“You want to save the island?” Lucy asked as she absentmindedly pulled her wool sweater off and threw it to the floor.

Michael looked at her in wide-eyed disbelief.

“No,” Robin responded. “I want to save me.”

“I don’t understand,” she told Robin.

“If they destroy me, then everything is lost. All of my father’s work will have been for nothing. My body will most likely survive the blast in cryo-preservation, but if the Robin 1 Mainframe is damaged, then all my memories, all of my father’s work will be lost with it. I cannot allow that to happen.”

“What do you need me for?” Lucy asked.

“Michael is dying. The compound I have instructed him to make will only stabilize him for a short time. Without an antidote he will die. Michael has the knowledge to help me, but if he decided to wander off to try and find you and did not come back, then I have no one to help me complete the transfer.”

“What makes you think I will help?” Lucy asked.

“You are already helping. You are here. Michael was most concerned about whether or not the transfer of bodily fluids would in turn infect the recipient,” Robin explained.

“You lost me,” Lucy shook her head in confusion as she slid her blood-stained pants off and let them fall to the floor. She thought she heard Michael gulp, but she was too busy concentrating on what Robin was saying to look at Michael.

“The kiss,” Robin explained to her. “Michael was so upset that he may have infected you with a kiss.”

Lucy’s mind raced back to when she left this place and how Michael had kissed her goodbye. With that thought she looked at Michael and noticed his eyes were firmly affixed to the view of her thong, and he wasn’t about to move his gaze anytime soon. She looked down at her nakedness and realized that in her hurry to get out of those smelly old clothes while listening to Robin’s explanations she hadn’t even realized she was undressing in front of Michael.

“Am I infected?” Lucy asked, turning her attention back to Robin as she pulled on the clean pants.

“Not exactly,” Robin answered.

“Not exactly?” You dragged me back to this place, and the best answer you can give me is ‘not exactly’?” Lucy was livid.

“She didn’t know at first,” Michael explained to Lucy. “The only way to know for sure was to test you. Robin refused to tell me unless I brought you back.”

“So you save me from the monsters when I am going to become one of them anyway?”

“No!” Michael shifted from his defensive tone to a demanding voice she’d never heard before.

It made her jump. It made her listen.

“That computer bitch has the answers and would not tell me or help me until I brought you back. I couldn’t bear the thought that the person I love may be infected and spreading this disease without even knowing it, or worse, knowing she is spreading it and unable to stop it!”

Lucy pulled the top of the scrubs on. “Unable to stop it? I don’t understand,” Lucy said, looking deep into Michael’s sad eyes.

“Love,” Robin said, “is an emotion I do not fully understand. Humans will do anything to protect the person they love. At first, I could not understand why my father worked so hard on his project. I learned it was because he loved me so much that nothing else mattered. I knew if Michael felt that same love towards you, he would do anything for the promise to be with you again. I simply gave him that promise.”

“Am I infected?” Lucy asked again.

“You are infected Lucy. But, unlike those other creatures, you are a host. You will not turn into one of them. You will create them.”

Lucy looked at Robin, then to Michael not fully understanding.

“That’s why I had to bring you back, Luce,” Michael explained.

“If someone drinks from your glass,” Robin explained, “They will be infected. If they eat from your plate, they will be infected. If they kiss…”

“They will be infected,” Lucy finished. “I get it. How is this even possible?”

“The original virus did not enter Michael’s digestive system,” Robin explained. “It was a mutated strain that was introduced directly into his blood system from the bite. His white blood cells tried to break down the virus so the virus re-adapted to survive. When Michael kissed you, the mutated strain transferred to you. Your blood was not infected because you did not get bitten, nor did you ingest the original strain. The virus re-adapted itself to your untainted blood to make you a host. The virus will protect the host and let you do the rest.”