DeadWorld

He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He cleaned the lenses with a tissue and inspected them before placing them back on. The ten monitors on the wall glared back at him, illuminating the room with an eerie blue-white glow. He was tired and felt like he was nearing the end. Five years of nearly constant work, day after day, week after week.

The first four years had been spent developing the plague to end all plagues or what he had coined as the Black-Life. It was a play on words from the greatest plagues known to man, the three Bubonic Plagues or the Black Death. This new plague, of his design, was a disease that did worse than kill; it made creatures without lives or souls. Less than human creatures, encased in dead and rotting flesh that slowly would disintegrate off the bone. Yet they would be in an animated state, always in motion, never resting, as the dead need not sleep. Hideous reflections of the humanity they had come from.

The greatest success of the Black-Life was that the dead would feed. They would devour flesh for no other reason than to satisfy a hunger that only living flesh could satiate. They would multiply as they fed, replicating the plague with each of their victims. Most of his test subjects, beginning with F1 and M1, were in holding where they could be used for future testing. They were already among the AD, animated dead, as he affectionately called them. Nothing would stop them from taking all humankind and laying it to waste. The world would be plunged into total anarchy that had not been seen since before written time.

He looked intently at the monitors; each one showed a different room with a different subject. They were each part of his current active experiment, six men and four women, strapped to hospital beds. They had numerous tubes running from their unconscious bodies to various monitors and pumps that were designed to keep them alive.

He had spent the last year attempting to stop the effect of the plague and immunize the chosen. He looked down at the report before him confident that he had at last found the vaccine. Subject F131 was showing no sign of the infection spreading, nor was M325, the remaining active subjects were inconclusive.

If the serum in F131 and M325 was working as it seemed, it would soon be time for a dead world to begin and the new kings of men to emerge. It was time to build a world that not even God could have foreseen.

He touched a button on his phone and a pleasant young female answered, “Yes Dr. Shinn?”

“Eun Mi, I am going down to the infirmary. We are having some positive results. Please have Dr. Kweon meet me down in the lab; I want Hyun Ae to check on the subjects with me.”

He reached in his desk and removed a shoulder holster and handgun. He strapped it on and placed his lab coat over it concealing it well enough. He had learned the hard way that being armed in the infirmary was a wise decision.

He headed to the service elevator feeling hopeful for the first time in all these long months. He ran his hand through his thinning hair and pressed the down arrow. The infirmary, which was located four floors beneath the observatory in the Lower Level, had once been home to a morgue. With a dull ding the old doors jerked open, and Dr. Shinn couldn’t help but smile to himself as he stepped inside. He felt like he was in control now, which was a definite shift in his mood since DASPA, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs, and his research group had taken over last year. Even the dead had been counted among the “Living Organisms” during this evolutionary restructuring of the human race.

He pushed the LL button once, twice, three times, each time with more force and annoyance than the last until the display finally lit and the elevator began its slow descent. Quickly he pulled his phone from his lab coat pocket. He had just three floors to send a text before his phone lost signal. Dr. Shinn always sent one last text before arriving at the infirmary, even if he didn’t have anything in particular to say to anyone. Creating a devastating disease was child’s play, living without your smart phone for an hour was the true challenge of the job.

Just as he hit send, the elevator came to a halt and the doors struggled open. Dr. Shinn looked up at the illuminated number 1 at the top of the elevator. “Who could be on the first floor at this hour?” he asked himself. From this vantage point only a dimly lit four to six feet of silence could be seen. Moments passed without a sight or sound. Unable to resist the temptation, he stepped over the threshold of the elevator. He placed his hand lightly on his DPRK, Democratic Peoples Republic Korea, Type 68 handgun, and hesitated then slowly leaned into the hallway.

“Hello?” he called out. He looked to the left and then the right, but nothing was in sight except the faint glow of the fluorescent lights that flickered over the dingy linoleum floor.

Dr. Shinn stepped back inside just in time for the doors to shutter to a close and he was again traveling down to the infirmary. The elevator stopped with a jolt, and he emerged glad that the ride was over. He felt a sense of anticipation creep over him as he was finally setting stride to his destination.

He swiped his badge in a security lock and heard the bolt trigger as it unlocked. A barely discernible whoosh sounded as the door opened, the air was noticeably colder beyond the door. The climate controlled underground facility was home to some of the world’s deadliest diseases, some of which he had created in the rooms within.

This was where he was most comfortable, among his experiments, vials, microscopes, and petri dishes. The germs, viruses, and bacteria were born from his mind, molded, adapted, and owed their very existence to his creativity. They were his offspring.

He looked through a window at subject F69 as she lay on the hospital bed, beautiful and terrible but he thought of her as terribly beautiful. Once her blonde hair and lithe form had turned the hearts of those who laid eyes on her, now, they turned only his. Her hair was straw-like and missing in large sections on the grey skin of her scalp, her cheeks sunken, her eyes hollow. Her mouth no longer bore the voluptuous lips of her youth but were dry and brown over teeth missing and rotting. But the worst or best part was that her mouth chomped at the air in a constant effort to take a bite out of anything living around her.

He opened the door, walked in, and stopped briefly to remove a large mouse from a cage by the door. It squealed as he lifted it by the tail and struggled helplessly to escape. He stepped up to her bedside and held the mouse just out of reach. Her brown eyes looked at him and he imagined they pleaded with him to give her the snack as she strained and snarled but could not get, for the restraints kept her bound.

“Here you are my darling, a sweet morsel for you,” he said aloud as he dropped the mouse into her snapping jaws. Blood squirted from her lips and dripped down the side of her mouth and down her neck. He dabbed the blood from her skin cautiously with a cloth watching to ensure she could not reach his hand with her gnashing jaws.

He was amazed she had survived this long and that the mice had sustained her animated flesh. His test subjects that had not been fed died quickly, while those that ate survived, if this was indeed survival. But it was not just that they ate, it was that they ate from the living and breathing. If the subject was fed raw or cooked meat, regardless how bloody, it had no effect in keeping the subject animated, only live animals would sustain them, seemingly forever. Feeding the subjects in holding had taken most of the region’s livestock.

He heard a noise behind him but didn’t turn knowing Dr. Hyun Ae Kweon had arrived. The bookish, rail thin woman who stood just shy of five feet tall came and stood beside him. Ironically, Hyun Ae meant kind and loving but she was neither. She was certainly highly intelligent but completely devoid of any feelings or basic human kindness. He was sure that the polar ice caps would feel warmer than her breasts in an embrace.

“Dae-Ho, I see F69 has continued to survive with regular feeding,” she said as she picked up a chart and marked down the time to keep track of the feeding intervals.

“Yes, as with most of the others,” he responded with a final wipe of blood off the subject’s neck. “I believe it is the oxygen content in the blood that is the difference. The blood of live breathing subjects, blood rich in oxygen seems to have the only lasting effect. It is why they feed so voraciously on the living while dead flesh they will ignore.”

“Eun Mi said you have made a breakthrough?”

“I believe so; we have two subjects that have shown remarkable progress with the latest vaccine.”

“Are you going to give the vaccine to your wife?”

He hesitated as he looked at the ring on subject F69’s finger, “No, she has been of much better service as she is.” He looked at her brown eyes again imagining that they recognized him, yet he knew it was not the case. “Thank you, my love, for all that you have done,” he finished as he placed his hand on her breast even as her jaws snapped viciously at the air above.

Reluctantly, he tore his gaze away from his wife’s wild eyes. “Now for the real purpose of my visit. Room 22.” With a nod to Dr. Kweon, he hurried out the door as she fired up her computer screen to make a few notes on F69’s condition.

The long corridor was lined with 24 rooms that could hold many subjects. While some subjects had animated almost immediately, others took several hours or even days to completely transform. It was impossible to predict how a subject was going to react to the disease. Currently they were actively studying ten subjects.

Dr. Shinn licked his lips slowly at the memory of the very first turn. The trickle of his disease flowing through the IV, the beeping of the heart monitor gradually coming to a flatline. The most thrilling moment of his career was watching the blood as it drained from F07, her bright eyes and rosy cheeks replaced with a grey pallor, cracked lips, and red ringed eyes of the living dead. Of course, not every doctor had shared his enthusiasm. As he passed each room, he could still see the ghostly forms of the doctors and nurses who had scrambled away from the deadly change, spilling into the hallway, bumping into each other like balls in a pinball machine.

Unlike its neighboring rooms, the door of Room 22 was ajar, a small slant of light peeked into the corridor. Before making his presence known, Dr. Shinn stood at the threshold watching and waiting, his hand placed securely on his gun.

“Shhh, don’t try to talk just yet,” whispered Nurse Hana. She brushed the hair from F131’s brow before looking to the man in the next bed. Patient M325 was wheeled next to F131, and he struggled pathetically against his wrist constraints.

“Oh no, you must stop. Your wrist is bleeding again.” Nurse Hana picked up his hand gently. “Are you trying to hold hands?” M325 struggled more intensely now against his restraint, the veins in his neck bulging and pulsating under his skin which was nearly back to its original flesh tone. Hesitating, Nurse Hana reached her hand in her scrub pocket and pulled out a small key.

“Nurse,” bellowed Dr. Shinn, “I have long thought you appeared to be simple minded, but even this surprises me.” Like a merciless predator, he kept his distance, standing just inside the room, arms crossed, eyes fierce.

Startled, Hana dropped the key, fumbling to catch the dull piece of metal before it landed on the floor. She knelt to pick it up and felt the Doctor standing over her. He was a small man, but a powerful one. Avoiding eye contact, she stood slowly, holding the key out to him, and bowing her head in respect.

“Good evening, Dr. Shinn,” she whispered.

“Is it? What are you doing with my subjects? Why have they been placed in the same room?”

Nurse Hana took a deep breath attempting to draw in courage as well. “I, umm, I, well…”

The Dr. leaned in toward Hana. “Speak up, dear. I can’t quite hear you through the stutter.”

“I read,” she began swallowing hard, “that if you put twins together in an incubator, they improve exponentially, Dr.” She met his eyes and continued, “I thought this might help the patients.

“They are not patients, nurse. They are subjects. In an experiment. My experiment.” He took another step toward her filling the empty space between them. “Do you understand?” He placed the key in the pocket of his lab coat. “And they are to remain separated and restrained.”

Walking over to F131’s monitor, he reviewed her vitals and heart rate which had improved drastically since he last checked. Her long black hair, spread sporadically in patches across her scalp was no longer straw like, her red rimmed eyes had regained a faint brown pigment, and her skin was elastic to the touch. The point of infection had not returned to normal during any previous trials. The subjects infected by bite retained the rotted, flaky skin and dark spread of veins, even once their transformation back was complete. Dr. Shinn liked to think of it as a souvenir. Not that it mattered. No subject would ever cross the threshold and return to the outside world.

“Take subject F131 back to her room, immediately,” he said in a menacing tone that had its desired effect on Hana as she wheeled out the bed with trembling hands. His eyes followed her out knowing that soon she would be joining the subjects herself, like the others.

He removed a small plastic box from his lab coat and opened it. The box revealed twenty small vials each containing the serum developed to reverse the effects of the disease. He had given the final dose of vaccine to the female yesterday, now it was time for her brother to receive his.

The premise of what Hana had said about bringing the twins together was intriguing. Exploring the healing powers of their bond would be an interesting experiment. It had no bearing on the current study, however. The serum either worked or it didn’t and that was all that mattered. Anything else just polluted the results, he thought as he gave the final injection to the male twin.

He stood in front of room 24 and took a deep breath then opened the door. Strapped to a hospital bed was a tall male, of Jewish descent, gaunt but still handsome. Hana had used the term adorable, which he did not understand when speaking about a male. The subject had been working as a reporter for the Israeli news when he had stumbled onto his experiments. It was not yet time for the world to know about the great accomplishments transpiring in these rooms, but this subject would offer a different kind of service.

“You,” he said as the Dr. entered the room. “Let me go. My government will be looking for me.”

“I know. We have already deflected a few inquiries. It is interesting that your Mossad colleagues would be so brash here on North Korean soil as to threaten the director of this government run facility. I assure you they will be dealt with expediently.”

“Why am I here then?”

“You are to be the final piece of the puzzle. Will this serum,” asked Dr Shinn, as he delicately opened the plastic box, removed a vial and loaded a syringe, “act as a vaccination as well as a cure?” He placed the needle against the man’s stomach and swiftly injected him.

“A vaccination for what? What have you given me?”

“A serum to fight the deadliest disease ever created. A disease you will be glad to have been immunized from I can assure you, although it will matter little in the end.”

“So, you intend to kill me then, after your twisted experiment.”

“No, I won’t have to do that, M340. As for my work, it may seem twisted to you, but our Eternal President has fully sanctioned my actions. A hundred years from now, when the world is a utopia, my name will be remembered with reverence.”

Dr. Shinn pushed a button on the intercom and Dr. Kweon’s cold steely voice responded, “Yes Dr. Shinn?”

“Please have the disease administered to subject M340 in exactly one hour,” he said then clicked off the intercom. “I wish you luck,” he finished as he gave a respectful bow, turned, and left the room.

M340 lay in silence, shaking with fear as each minute ticked away slowly until the gentle whoosh of the door opening signaled his hour was up.

Closing his eyes, he feigned sleep as the quick footsteps entered his room. He could feel that he was being watched and tried to keep his breathing a steady rhythm. The sound of Velcro slowly peeling apart made his heart start to race. Deciding to take a chance and steal a swift glance, he saw a short thin Asian woman in a white lab coat leaning over the bed, holding a syringe up to the light as she flicked the needle with her fingernail.

It was now or never. With nimble grace, he withdrew his arm from under the thin sheet thanking God for the slack in his arm strap. He grabbed the doctor’s slight wrist and with a quick twist heard the tiny snap of bone he hoped would be his salvation. Dr. Kweon screeched out in pain and tried to retreat, but his grip was too tight as he continued to twist until she had no choice but to drop the syringe. With his other hand, he grabbed the front of her lab coat and pulled her down face to face.

“Take this you bitch,” he growled and with a firm grip, head butted her with all his might square in the face. Blood spewed from her broken nose into his eyes and mouth as he yanked her down on top of him across the bed. His strong hands groped around her body until he found what he was searching for. He maneuvered his position, stretching his arm as far as it would go and dug his fingers inside her pocket. A sigh of relief escaped his bloody lips as he withdrew her keys and found the small silver tubular key hanging on the ring. Within seconds he had released his hands from their straps and shoved the doctor onto the floor. He sat up, taking care not to drop the syringe off the bed, and quickly unlocked his legs. Gingerly, he picked up the syringe, swung his long legs around, and hopped off the bed.

A sly smile spread across his lips as he jammed the needle into Dr. Kweon’s ass and pushed the plunger down hard. Knowing he only had seconds more, he quickly frisked her and found a handgun stowed against the small of her back. He grabbed the gun and wished he was wearing more than just a hospital johnny. He jerked Dr. Kweon’s badge off her coat and in three strides was at the door. Swiping the badge in the security lock, he felt his adrenaline kick into high gear once again as the door whooshed open and he stepped out into the unknown hallway.

Dr. Shinn walked through the corridor toward his office and had never felt so exhilarated. The world was about to dance to a new symphony, and he was the conductor. The rooms he walked by held the orchestra players. All of them beyond hope, shells of humanity, pale and bloodless. Their red eyes rimmed in black were wild with hatred for all things living. Their sole purpose now was to feed for reasons they did not know or care.

His experiments had begun with wild dogs. When the Eternal President heard about the success he had creating a rabid canine army, he had been granted access to the political prisoners. He was told to use them to test his theories, for their lives were worth less than the dogs and the army he created would be far more lethal.

The disease had begun as a mutated form of rabies, the intent had been to create a mindless rabid army. But something wondrous had happened, instead of dying, the infected had become even more ferocious and their thirst for blood insatiable. They would claw and gnash their teeth, even though their legs might be broken or arms missing. Some, even to his amazement, were still animated when there was nothing left but the fiendish head to screech at the air.

He had taken the first subjects of this infection that he had dubbed Black-Life and tested them for normal life signs but found nothing that remotely resembled the living. No heartbeat, brain function or circulation of blood took place in these animated dead. They seemed to see yet their brains did not recognize. They could smell and hear but their brains did not register it. It was as if their only instinct was to kill and drink from the flesh of others. To feed from the living was all that remained.

The experiments became infinitely more interesting from there as he tried to determine how far one would have to go to kill the things of his creation. Strangely enough, destroying the unthinking, nonfunctioning brain seemed to be the only answer. The brain when stabbed, shot, or irreparably damaged through violence would destroy the animated dead.

Dr. Shinn stepped into his office and turned on the monitor to M340 to watch the historic moment. The overhead camera revealed an empty bed and Dr. Kweon unconscious on the floor with a syringe protruding from her ass. His eyes narrowed as he cycled through the cameras that dotted the facility. He pressed an intercom for General Shu’s office.

“Yes, Dr.,” answered the gruff and emotionless voice of General Shu.

“Subject M340 has escaped,” he responded as he continued to cycle through videos of the hallways in the facility. “He must have used Dr. Kweon’s keys and security badge to leave the room.”

“How long has he been missing?”

He looked at his watch. He knew Dr. Kweon’s fear of him would have made her prompt with the injection. “Two minutes at the most.”

He heard the General commanding someone else in the room to shut off Dr. Kweon’s card access. “He will no longer have security card rights. But he will still have the keys. Which doors will the keys give him access to?”

He spotted the Mossad agent in corridor 4, section 22 running blindly forward, unwittingly moving deeper into the facility. He quickly told the General where the man was. “Can you give his security card access to some of the doors and not others?”

“Yes, we can Dr., but why?”

“I need to know if the vaccination works. He is nearing the Black-Life primary holding area for the afflicted. He wants to have a way out, let’s give it to him. Let him open the doors to hell.”

“Dr. Shinn, as brilliant as you think you are, this could not be a worse moment for a breach in security,” replied General Shu. “Did you receive Eun Mi’s urgent email and text messages?”

“No, General, I did not” retorted Dr. Shinn. “I have been occupied in the infirmary and there is no cell reception as you well know.”

Conversations with General Shu always made him uneasy, and he could feel a cold sweat coming on. The General, who clearly enjoyed making Shinn uncomfortable continued, “The Eternal President, Kim Long-Ju, is on his way here to check on your progress, Dr. Shinn.” The intercom light went out as the General discontented.

Dr. Shinn inhaled slowly and deeply, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose careful not to smudge his glasses. “How in fucking hell am I going to contain this?” he thought shaking his head as his heart sank. Suddenly the intercom crackled overhead, and Eun Mi’s voice echoed out, “Dr. Shinn, please report immediately to Visitor’s Reception.”

Dr. Shinn scanned his office security monitors for Nurse Hana’s whereabouts. “To think it has come to this,” he whispered to himself, “relying on that idiot when my very existence is at stake.” He spotted her outside of F131’s room smoking a cigarette in the hallway. His disdain for her grew even stronger at this ultimate sign of weakness. “God, that woman disgusts me!” he thought as he picked up his phone and dialed 4173, the extension to the phone in the hallway nearest Nurse Hana.

He watched as she turned to the sound of the ringing phone and stared at it as she took a long draw and exhaled slowly. Mercifully she moved toward the phone, looked around and tentatively reached for the receiver with trembling fingers. She removed the handle from the base and brought it to her ear, “Hello?” she asked timidly.

“Nurse Hana!” barked Dr. Shinn. “I need you to immediately report to Room 24 and aid Dr. Kweon. Subject M340 has attacked her and escaped. You must remove any evidence of misconduct, and place Dr. Kweon in the bed and restrain her so that it looks like she is a subject. Under no circumstances are you to tell anyone that there has been a breach of any kind. Our very lives are at stake. Do you understand me?”

“Y-Yes, Dr. Shinn,” stammered Nurse Hana, “right away.” She dropped the phone, stubbed her cigarette out on the linoleum floor and ran toward room 24 barely able to think as she clutched her key card and tried to swallow the fear rising in her throat.

Dr. Shinn knew he needed to compose himself as he made his way to the Visitor’s Reception. This audience with the Eternal President should have been the proudest moment of his life. It should not have been clouded by shame and failure. He gathered his thoughts as he ran several scenarios through his mind. He quickly rejected the lies that might have saved him since General Shu, and those under his command knew too much of the truth.

M340 ran barefoot down the corridor, not knowing where it led but wanting to put as much distance as he could between himself and the room where he had been held for several days. The Dr. had been right that he was a member of the Jewish security agency known as Mossad. He did not run with fear but with purpose. It was important for him to escape and reveal what he knew about this place and the insanity of those who ran it.

The hall was lined with doors but the key card he carried did not open them. He turned left, down a similar corridor, a sign at the end of the hallway read Exit in Korean. He opened the door and found two secure doors, one that lead to a stairway up, and the other down. He slid the key card in the door that led to the stairs up, but the light did not change from red to green. He tried it in the door that led down, and it worked.

He opened the door, and a sudden burst of bright florescent light revealed a stairway to the floor below. He took the sleeve of the johnny, tore off a piece of fabric and stuffed it into the lock. There was no good reason why he could only go down the stairs unless he was being forced to. He wanted to be able to return this way without finding the door locked behind him.

He reached the landing below and opened the door using the key card. Beyond were two doors, but again only one opened with his card. He stuffed more of the johnny fabric in that door jamb as he entered, letting the pistol lead the way.

This corridor had only a single open door at the far side. He looked for any signs of a guard that might be stationed there, but the area was quiet. His bare feet made silent footfalls on the cold linoleum as he moved slowly, toward the open doorway. Suddenly a large pounding BOOM! resounded from inside the room ahead. It sounded like a bull had charged into a door trying to break it down. He jumped back against the wall, crouched down on one knee, and gripped his gun. His senses, already on heightened alert, told him to flee and quickly, but he knew that the only place he could return to was the rat’s maze above.

He waited and again there was only silence, except for the pounding of his heart. He moved forward until reached the entranceway. There was a waiting area with a small cluttered desk, a dimly lit computer monitor, and an empty chair in front of a metal security door. He lowered himself and moved quickly around the corner pointing the gun toward the metal door. BOOM! The thundering noise was louder than the last time but whatever was trying to get out was not having any luck.

He stood and quickly went to the desk and looked at the monitor, but it had entered sleep mode and required a password to unlock. The door was struck again with another resounding BOOM! from the other side.

He moved close do the door and yelled, “Hey, can you hear me?” A brief silence followed then another loud BOOM! as whoever was on the other side tried desperately to break down the door and escape. He knew the feeling well, trapped upstairs, his only thought had been to get the hell out. He knew if it had not been for the doctor’s key card, he would have been trying to beat down a door just like the one in front of him.

He slid the card through the security lock then moved back across the room as the door was struck again, sprang open and slammed against the wall. A huge man burst into the room; blood sprayed out from him as he fell and struck the linoleum. He lifted himself up on all fours, tipped his head and looked around. His red eyes were rimmed in black, dripping blood instead of tears, his nose was crushed and misshapen. The man’s eyes saw M340, and he opened his mouth in a roar that rose from gruesome depths and exploded through broken teeth in a spray of blood and spittle.

M340 tried to steady his hand and stop the gun from shaking, but he had never seen anything as hideous as the twisted flesh before him. He backed up a step just as the monster leapt and seemed to fly through the air. He fired a shot at its chest before the thing collapsed on him.

M340 fell backwards and tried to get away, but the beast had landed on his legs, then sank its gnashing teeth into his thigh and ripped a chunk of flesh from his leg. He writhed in pain but managed to put the gun against its head and fired. The bullet exploded out the back of its skull with enough force to spray the room beyond with blood.

He rolled the beast man off and grabbed his hurt leg that was bleeding from a great hole just above the knee. He let out a cry as he tried to fashion a tourniquet from the fabric of the johnny but was cut off by the sound of a roar. This time it was not a single voice but more like a stadium of voices roaring after a goal. He stood as quickly as he could, and leaned against the wall for support, sliding step by step back toward the door he had entered before. He willed his injured leg to take the weight of his body, he knew he needed to get away from that terrible noise, but it was all he could do not to scream as the pain of the bite seared into his brain.

Suddenly the corridor filled with a hoard of beastly faces and misshapen bodies with red eyes and gnashing teeth. He turned and tried to run away, but his leg refused to cooperate. He lunged forward in limping strides toward the door, grabbed the handle and reached for the wad of cloth so he could lock the door behind him. Before he could secure the door, one of the creatures reached him and bit him with gnashing teeth. He fired as fast as the gun would allow, killing one after another until the gun clicked uselessly when he pulled the trigger.

Then they were on him, and he screamed as he felt the flesh ripped from his face and neck. Bite after bite tearing and ripping at his body unleashing a pain and agony unlike anything he ever imagined. He looked up at the door at the top of the stairs and had one satisfying thought as he slipped into merciful death. He had left the door to hell open.

Dr. Shinn opened the door to the Visitor’s Reception and in his hand he carried a small black case. The case contained one hundred vials of glistening green serum to be given to the Eternal President. He had already taken a dose himself and had another ten vials in a smaller pouch in his pocket for his own personal use on people he chose.

The large room had a dozen plush red cushioned chairs with blue wooden frames to reflect the colors of the North Korean Flag. Seven men and one woman had already arrived. Four of the men stood flanking a seated rotund man whose true age was hidden beneath layers of fat. The Eternal President Kim Long-Ju was dressed in a well-tailored black suit and his meaty fingers bore a number of large ruby and emerald rings. A woman sat beside him in a red kimono adorned with blue flowers. She had a tablet in her lap and was carefully typing everything that was said by her leader. There were two men seated to the Eternal President’s right, both in military dress uniforms. One was General Shu, and the other was his top aide, Major Ha.

Dr. Shinn approached and both the General and the Major stood but the President did not. “Welcome, Dr. Shinn,” said the President in a voice that carried across the room. “I have heard great things about your experiments and am pleased that you have completed the objectives laid out by my father all those years ago.”

Dr. Shinn stopped a few feet from the President and bowed in honor and submission. “I am only grateful that your Eminence has permitted me to continue his experiments to their proper conclusion. I offer you one hundred doses of serum and a flash drive containing the chemical make-up of the antidote. The recipe will allow you to make as much of the antidote as your Eminence requires.”

The President nodded to General Shu who in-turn nodded to Major Ha. The major accepted the case with a bow. “Your country owes you a great debt and much honor Dr.,” said the President. “Name anything you wish, and it will be yours. I hear you have always been a student of ancient Rome. Perhaps you would wish to govern Italy when we win the war to end all wars.”

Dr. Shinn bowed again in reverence, “It is with great humility that I accept whatever your Eminence would offer as reward for my humble services.”

The door to the security wing opened and several uniformed men carrying AK-74U assault rifles entered the room. The four men in charge of security both drew pistols and quickly stood in-front of the President. General Shu spoke quickly, “At ease, these are my personal security officers. Why have you interrupted us, Major Chae?”

The Major stopped in front of the General and hesitated before he spoke. “General, the Mossad Agent fled to the infirmary as you wished, but there is a problem. The security doors were not properly closed. The AD have escaped from holding and the upper hallways have been infiltrated.”

“What does this mean?” asked the President as he struggled to stand.

“There is a holding area where we keep the infected, in case we needed subjects to experiment on in late-stage infestation,” began Dr. Shinn. “Apparently the General’s military security is not as tight as I was led to believe.”

“This breach is caused by your incompetence,” barked the General.

“My people and I are not security minded. We are scientists. If we were good at security, we would not need you here. This breach is your responsibility, General.”

The General pulled a revolver and pointed it at Dr. Shinn, but the President spoke loudly beside him. “If you pull that trigger, I will personally feed you to the good Dr.’s subjects.” Immediately the four security guards pointed their weapons at the General. “Dr. Shinn is quite right. This is your responsibility, so I suggest you correct it. We however will be leaving.” The President nodded at one of the guards who took the black case from the Major. He then turned and offered his hand to his aide. She stood and positioned herself behind him. “Dr. Shinn, it has been a pleasure,” he ended as they turned and walked toward the exit.

The lead security man opened the door for the President and was immediately attacked by three snarling, animated dead, their flesh rotting off their bodies, blood dried around festering wounds. The man screamed and fired several rounds but one of the AD lashed out and sank its teeth into his neck and blood began to gush from the wound. His screams turned to gurgling cries as he emptied his gun into the beast.

The hallway behind them filled with more and more dead creatures. Two of the security men positioned themselves in front of the President. They attempted to hold back the onslaught of staggering Black-Life victims. One of them shot an AD in the head and it fell, motionless. They fired repeatedly at the others, aiming for their skulls, dropping them one by one. Soon there were more than twenty lunging at the President. The guard’s ammunition was exhausted, and they could no longer fight them off. The President turned to run but he was no match for the rotted hand reaching for him. Soon there were three infected AD feasting on him, gnawing at him as his dying screams exploded from his lips.

The last guard holding the vaccination case moved to the President’s rescue but collapsed as the back of his head exploded from a round of fire that exited from the General’s gun. Major Ha grabbed the serum case and with the remaining people in the room, ran toward the security area through the door behind them. The men armed with the assault rifles opened fire on the infested, aiming carefully at the heads of their targets, as the others scurried through the security door to safety.

Dr. Shinn stared at the monitors in the security room. Every screen was filled with mindless movement of endless hordes of his beloved Black-Life infected minions. They were the culmination of all his hard work and efforts, his children and their offspring through bite and scratch. They filled his soul with pride even as he saw those around him stare back in horror. They were starting to realize a flaw in the security complex. It was in the center of the facility, and there was no way out without confronting his children.

The two Majors were arguing about whose escape plan they should use when one of them took out his pistol and shot the other in the chest. The man crumpled to the ground and lay motionless in a heap of flesh and bone. The General’s aide, Major Ha, placed the gun back in its holster and turned to the others in the room. Dr. Shinn noticed the dead man’s body begin to twitch. He stood in jerking motions as the room erupted in screams. He fell upon Major Ha, sinking his teeth deep into his shoulder in a final act of revenge.

Dr. Shinn quickly made his way to the door in the back of the room. He knew now, what he had only suspected, that the Black-Life plague had already infected everyone in the complex. Once they died, they would become AD regardless of how they died. As he turned the handle, he could see the panic in the faces of the guards as they realized that death was loose in the room. He closed and locked the door behind him.

“Well, Dr. Shinn,” said the General from behind his desk. “It seems that we are at our final destination.”

“Yes, General,” said Dr. Shinn. “There will be no escape for us.”

“They say that no one leaves this world alive. I think we will ensure that. Have you told anyone outside of this facility about the antidote?”

“No, General.”

He nodded and pointed to one of the monitors in his office. It was an airplane hangar located in a desert area. The doors opened and a small plane exited and began to taxi down a runway. “This is the first of many planes around the globe that will deliver your invention to the world.”

“But without the antidote there is no hope for even our own people.”

The General held up a flash drive that he recognized as the one from the case. “I have sent these files to my son. He will be the king of the new world such as it will be.”

“You are the one who let my subjects out so they would kill the President!”

“Yes, it was necessary. I have also sent strict instructions to my son to decimate this facility immediately to contain the infection. I want him to have total control of the spread. My son will take command of the military under Marshall Law and will administer the antidote to his faithful, while the rest of the world dies.”

Dr. Shinn sat down feeling a pride swell within him. He had ushered in the new world, a place where the true master race would rule after the initial chaos. “It will be difficult in the beginning you know. I wish I could be there to see the glory of this new world. There will be many that fight this infection. It is possible that they will devise their own serum.”

“Yes, but by then Korea will be the last bastion of an uninfected society. The rest of the world will be but a shadow of what it once was. Even if they solve the riddle of the infection, we will have all the power.”

“What are we to do from this room?”

The General reached over and clicked a button on the phone then spoke, “Please engage aerial assault,” he clicked off the phone. “Phase one has been set in motion.”

Dr. Shinn watched as the plane on the monitor took off over the desert. The monitor began to cycle through different airfields around the world, as planes took off to wield their attack worldwide. “What happens next?”

“Next will be the last thing for you and me,” he answered as he opened a drawer and drew out two pistols. He slid one across to Dr. Shinn. “Be sure to have the bullet go through the brain or you will be like all the others.”

“Thank you, General,” answered Dr. Shinn. Moments later two shots rang out and would have been heard, if there had been anyone left alive to listen.